Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black
Directed by: The Farrelly Brothers
Take 300 pounds of Gwyneth Paltrow, mix in Jack Black, and a touch of Jason Alexander. Then insert the Farrelly Brothers. The concoction formed by a seemingly good cast and well-reputed brothers of gross-out comedy would seem to make a good film. Unfortunately, the whole thing falls a bit flat.
Shallow Hal is a perfect example of why people should stick with what they know. It’s the story of a dying father who tells his boy never to settle for anything less than a super-model. The boy grows up into a man named Hal (Jack Black), and he is as shallow as they come, hence the title.
By a twist of fate, TV guru Tony Robbins meets Hal and puts a spin on Hal’s perception. From that point on, he only sees women for their inner beauty. Knowing the Farrelly Brothers’ past movies such as Me, Myself, and Irene, There’s Something About Mary, and Dumb and Dumber, one expects a great deal of physical comedy. Jack Black, a man with silly antics and lyrics when performing in the Tenacious D duo, should have fit the part. And it certainly is funny when Hal went around hitting on the city’s grotesque but kind-hearted women. There are some real gems of comedy when Hal inadvertently insults the overweight Rosemary (Paltrow) because he sees her as a thin, and in his logic, attractive woman.
Both the physical stunts and ironic comments on Rosemary’s beauty are amusing, but they are just two sides of the same joke. The whole “I think you’re beautiful and nice when you’re really ugly and nice,” concept is not enough from which to make a movie.
Surprisingly, there are far fewer physical jokes than in past Farrelly films. They more or less abandon their trademark. There is a large amount of dialogue between characters, which leads to numerous repetitive shots of one character, the other, and then back. Visually, 90 percent of the movie is cinematically dull. Mind you, Hal and his friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander) have some good lines, but the film is not laugh a minute.
The plot is much more like an Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider creation. It follows their recipe of taking a lovable loser with a quirky foible, a sidekick, and giving the protagonist a mission of getting the girl and being a better person in the end. The boys from Saturday Night Live are much more slapstick and silly-and therefore successful-than Jack Black is in Shallow Hal. Hal is too ordinary of a character for the wily Black to play. Black is a performer who needs to be silly or cynical in his parts in order to do well. The film is funny but not to the caliber of past Farrelly films, and the PG-13 rating cuts out most of the material that makes the directing brothers famous. There’s a good story and even a couple of heart-warming moments, but it’s just enough to make the film average.
***