monitorTHIS! - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 8)

movies new dvds in stores this month OutrageOus MisfOrtune B Steve Coogan is the demented heart of Hamlet 2 by Bret McCabe ritish actor Steve Coogan, revered in his U.K. home, has yet to land the role that propels him to American stardom. Sure, his turn as Manchester’s post-punk ringleader Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People and his caustic version of himself in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story endeared him to comedy-inclined art-house audiences, but his roles in more mainstream movies such as Night at the Museum and Tropic Thunder are more one-dimensional bit parts. And no American role has truly tapped into his tremendous gifts for subtle exaggeration and poker-faced satire, skills that powered his best-known creation, Alan Partridge, the narcissistic fictional sports commentator turned chat-show host that Coogan portrayed on radio and television. Thanks to director Andrew Fleming’s Hamlet 2, though, Coogan finally has a character and script that recognizes his strengths for subdued lunacy. Dana Marschz (Coogan) is a failed Hollywood actor and recovering alcoholic slumming it as a Tucson high school drama teacher who faces the usual problems: students who passively ignore him or outright insult him, an administration that doesn’t care about his program (the school board wants to discontinue it, and his rehearsals are unceremoniously shoved from the lunchroom to the gym—where the volleyball team is practicing), and a disdainful wife (Catherine Keener) who so resents him that she has an affair with the boarder (David Arquette) they’ve taken in to help make ends meet. Worse of all, though, is that Dana’s productions—such as his stage adaptation of Erin Brockovich—are savaged in the school’s paper by freshman critic Shea Pepe (Noah Sapperstein), who casually tells Dana he should try to do something original. His answer: a sequel to Shakespeare’s “bummer” of a tragedy, the titular Hamlet 2, complete with a time machine, cameos from Jesus, Einstein and Hillary Clinton, and music provided by The Tucson Gay Men’s Chorus. If it all feels a little to close to Christopher Guest’s Corky St. Clair in Waiting for Guffman, do note that Coogan is a much better and more willing actor to be the target of his own barbed humor. Where Guffman skewered small-town, middle America community theater, Coogan takes deadly aim at a more slippery target, one that can strike too close for comfort: the failed dreamer, an artistic hopeful whose lack of success and desperation has so clouded his judgment that any feedback, including that of a teenage critic, feels like manna from heaven. Hamlet 2 the movie vacillates wildly between the over-the-top— the “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus” production number comes to mind—and playing it safe, but Coogan’s Dana always reaches for something that will forever be out of his grasp, which somehow makes this sad, unlovable creation an endearingly tragic figure. hamlet 2 is available December 23 on DVD from Focus Features [ 8 + monitorthis! + dec 08 / jan 09 ]

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monitorTHIS! - December 2008/January 2009

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