Friday - Movies

The Age

Thursday June 19, 2008

Craig Mathieson

America's Sweethearts (2001)

Channel Ten, 9.30pm

Some people don't get the message. Joe Roth made several banal Hollywood teen B-movies in the latter part of the 1980s, but soon realised that he excelled in the role of producer. He ended up running divisions of several major studios, earning much profit and banking the necessary favours to take a second shot at a directing career. The first of three films he's directed this decade certainly had a notable cast: Julia Roberts, John Cusack, Billy Crystal and Catherine Zeta-Jones all starred in America's Sweethearts. The intent is a light romantic farce, framed against the supposedly gentle hypocrisy of the movie business. The final movie made by America's favourite off-screen couple, Gwen Harrison (Zeta-Jones) and Eddie Thomas (Cusack) is

about to screen for the assembled media in the wake of the pair's messy divorce. The picture's eccentric director (Christopher Walken) has

the only print and it's up to a knowing PR boss (Crystal) and Gwen's long-suffering sister and assistant

(Roberts) to keep everything together. The satire is tired and the tone limp America's Sweethearts needed Billy Wilder, not the director of Revenge of the Nerds II. -- CRAIG MATHIESON

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