Painfully Unfunny Baggage a Romantic Misfire
Montana Moore (Paula Patton) is in crisis mode. Little sister Sheree (Lauren London) is engaged to be married, and her smothering mother, who’s been married herself five different times and is currently on the hunt for ex-husband number six, Catherine (Jenifer Lewis) is ecstatic. Feeling the pressure to show she’s on the road to matrimonial bliss, urged on by fellow flight attendant friends Gail (Jill Scott) and Sam (Adam Brody), Montana works her airline’s reservation system to spy on her ex-boyfriends. She’s going to appear on flights they’re ticketed for, setting up faux coincidental encounters in order to see if romantic sparks are worthy of being rekindled.
PHOTO: Fox Searchlight
Comparisons to the Anna Faris/Chris Evans romantic comedy What’s Your Number? aside, working from his own book writer/director David E. Talbert (First Sunday) has managed to construct one of the more painfully unfunny experiences have had the displeasure to experience in all of 2013 with the anemic Baggage Claim. If the movie was just bad, we’d have very little to talk about. But it’s also misogynistic, homophobic and filled to the brim with patronizing, supposedly romantic bile I could barely tolerate let alone endure for a full 96 minutes, and the only shock was that I was able to sit through the movie until the bitter end.
Am I being too harsh? I don’t think so. Montana is about as bad a female role model as any put to screen in quite some time. Beaten down by her mother, her entire life revolving around finding the perfect suitor under the mind-blowing belief doing so will make her a “Lady,” her dreams and aspirations rarely rise above the trivial. She goes out of her way to make herself look as plastic and as fake as possible, a walking-talking mannequin fit to sit on some successful man’s arm and barely anything else.
The point of the movie, of course, is that through this experience, Montana will learn to rise above these desires and become the successful, confident woman she truly is within. She will learn that being a “Lady” has nothing to do with having a man by your side. But these points are hammered home with such didactic indifference it’s hard to know whether or not Talbert actually believes any of the lessons he apparently wants his heroine to learn. Worse, by the end all of this is thrown out the window entirely, everything culminating in scenes of supposedly warm-hearted amorousness that had my head spinning in grotesque indignation.
Some good actors are stranded here, not the least of which are the collection of male specimens trapped as Montana’s potential suitors. Djimon Hounsou comes off best, the smoothly seductive Academy Award-nominee oozing warmth, charm and sensitivity. Derek Luke also manages to look pretty decent, and while he has the thankless task of being the stereotypical childhood friend the leading lady has managed to overlook and belittle her entire life until it’s almost too late, he still makes more of the character than he has any right to.
But the rest? The less said about any of them the better. Taye Diggs tries, but his politically-minded schmoozer is so melodramatically risible he’s almost a walking, talking cliché. As for the remaining two exes, Boris Kodjoe and Trey Songz both make appearances but there’s nothing to say about either of them one way or the other, Talbert’s script about as interested in the two characters as it is about the price of tea in China.
I worry about Patton. She made a decent enough of an impression in Déjà Vu, quickly following that up with performances ranging between pretty good to certifiably great in pictures as diverse as Mirrors, Jumping the Broom and Precious. She even stole parts of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol from Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner, no small feat no matter who one is or how talented an actor they’ve proven over time to be. But she was close to terrible in 2 Guns and was sadly one of the weaker elements of the otherwise solid ensemble showcased in Disconnect, neither film doing anything with the actress other than making her look relatively inept at her craft.
With this performance, I’m not sure what to say. Montana is a bad character, but Patton doesn’t seem capable of rising above the material in some way that could make her, if not redeemable, at least somewhat relatable and charming. There’s no infectious spark, no joyful quirk that could make spending time with the flight attendant worthwhile. Montana is a hollow shell around which everything sadly revolves, making caring for her an abysmal impossibility.
PHOTO: Fox Searchlight
I haven’t even mentioned Brody’s character, an effete homosexual best friend stereotype straight out of the early ‘80s, or how Lewis’s performance as an imperious motherly monstrosity is about as charming as a swift kick to the head. On a positive note, I can say Scott shows star potential as the gregarious, outspoken Gail, and if I did ever chuckle or giggle the cause of any such potential merriment was without question entirely because of her.
In the end, it likely comes as no surprise that I found Baggage Claim to be close to inexcusable. Talbert’s film is boringly mundane at best, offensively distasteful at worst, everything moving along at such a turgidly sluggish pace I wondered if anyone involved honestly cared to put forth anything close to their best efforts during filming. The movie is pretty much a disaster, the only solace I can find is the comfort in knowing I’ll never have to think about it again after I finish writing this review.
– Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: 1 (out of 4)
