Do you believe?

The Great Buck Howard

Crit

It's a metafilm: John Malkovich, who plays an Amazing Kreskinesque mentalist reduced to playing Bakersfield, has himself been reduced to giving life to cinematic Bakersfields like this: a perfectly OK movie that has a certain small charm despite its scaffold of clichés and its utter predictability, but which I'll have forgotten in a week and would already have forgotten but for Malkovich's ability to turn weak, repeated comic set pieces--Buck shakes hands vigorously enough to separate shoulders; Buck declares his love for every town he plays without ever actually naming the town; Buck pitches a hissy when he doesn't get his way--into something that makes you, if only briefly, give a shit.

Excuse me if I seem grumpy, but two people were laid off and five others had their hours cut this week at my workplace--friends of mine who did their jobs well--and I'm getting a little tired of filmmakers mailing it in. If you can't tickle me or frighten me or sicken me or make me think, why are you wasting my time?