Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Chaperone

Taking the Fall in MSG with Alan Trehern and Panther Joe

Wow. Take a look at that movie poster. Approximately 80% of what is going on in that thing didn't really happen in the movie. Triple H looks borderline mentally challenged, and as Panther pointed out, the bus in the movie is NOT a standard yellow school bus; there are no bullets in the windshield and the bad guys NEVER get a chance to saddle the roof of the commercial vehicle. An introduction based on the movie poster can mean only one thing: very few points of discussion...


The Chaperone
(2011)
Directed by Stephen Herek

Starring Paul Levesque (Hunter Hearst Helmsley), Kevin Corrigan and some kids


Durf.

The Chaperone contains your run-of-the-mill storyline, with clichés flying like Mardi Gras beads. Don't worry, kid, you'll get it. Ex-con Ray Bradstone (Helmsley) is finally released from a seven-year sentence in prison, and he's decided to change his life around, spend more time with his kid and make sure he doesn't end up back in jail.

**record scratch**

The entire world, though, wants to see Bradstone fail. His old cohorts want him back in the crime business, his ex-wife is dating some shlub, and his daughter won't speak to him. Next comes scene after scene of Helmsley dropping the verbal Pedigree on 12-year-old kids, slumping into facial contortions and juggling around a bag of cash, a huge-ass bus and inept criminals...ON A SCHOOL FIELD TRIP!!!!

**second record scratch...shoots foot**


Frumpy face time, Helmsley...

Don't get me wrong, and I hate to admit this, but this movie wasn't that bad. It's entertaining, stupid at times, but all in all an enjoyable time at the movies. But let's just get to the Trehern critiques, which is what you're paying for, people. SPOILER ALERT.

Trehern Thoughts

Helmsley pulls out a pretty good performance, but I have no idea why he's in movies like this when he could be kicking ass in an action flick and breaking out like The Rock or Stone Cold. Come on, dude, you're the Cerebral Assassin, not Driving Miss Daisy!

Most of the comedy draws from Bradstone's insistence on finding his inner-self and his fight to NOT punch any of the kids on the bus. Seriously, kids are f*cking stupid. When I was a kid, you were lucky to get an hour of TV that night, much less get a backpack full of fireworks, an iPhone, wireless walkie-talkie headsets or collagen lip enhancements. Yup, you heard right; a kid gets lip enhancements on the class' trip to New Orleans. Dumb.

And then, in the end, Helmsley is saved by a rag-tag group of children and their high-tech equipment? Only one kid can stand up to armed criminals and that's Macaulay Culkin. Done . That's it. Take it or leave it. If kids are thinking this is what life as a child is like, they are sadly mistaken.


"Society dictates that I make fun of you!!!!! Hurrrrrr."

Panther's Thoughts
More spoilers ahead, jackwagons. Certain parts of the movie were well done, while instances in the beginning and end had me head scratching. Almost every decision Ray makes right after he is released from the slammer is the wrong one--he steals a car, sneaks onto a middle school campus, and badgers his ex-wife.

The action in this flick is deplorable. At one point, the main bad guy LaRue (Kevin Corrigan, Eddie from Grounded for Life) shoots a padlock off a door, and the scene is cut in a way where you see the gun fire, then a cut of the padlock being shot, or more or less falling off the door. I think bullets travel at something like 500 ft/sec...LaRue was standing close enough to that thing he should have asked it out to Bennigans.

Most of the movie revolves around Ray trying to connect with his daughter, Sally, on a field trip, but at the same time he is being bothered by his botched bank robbery the same morning. Oh yeah, that was one of the things that Ray screwed up in the beginning...dude burgled a place, got cold feet and left LaRue and the gang hangin'. Needless to say, they were right steamin' mad.

The ending was just as silly as it invoked visions of what I think Agent Cody Banks would look like. Despite what my grumpy cohort might say, Triple H was actually pretty solid in this, probably competing with the likes of The Rock in the grapplers-turned-actors division.


Kevin Corrigan...Ultimately more successful than Donal Logue...

If you're looking for a Triple H vehicle, skip this flick. Wait until he's in something a little more action packed. Or check out DESTIGEDDON. If you have a family, this is probably an A+ movie to check out. Safe, humorous, and well-paced. Hopefully, your kids know that this is a movie, and that if they want a cell phone, they can wait til they have a job to pay for it. Oh wait, no job? Have fun checking the couch for pay-phone quarters, scamp.

2 comments:

said...

Such bitterness about a lack of childhood toys, Trehern. But I'm right there with you on the kids with iPhones thing. (And the kids being stupid thing, too, actually.)

And though Kevin Corrigan was in The Departed, Donal Logue was in Terriers, so...can we call that a wash?

said...

It's not "lack of childhood toys", I just wasn't handed everything I asked for. I learned to appreciate the things that WERE given to me.

The kids in this movie are so spoiled that they may turn into terrible adults someday. That's when verbal abuse from Helmsley is necessary.