Just the Ticket #134: One Night At McCool's (List Lookback)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Ticketmaster,

Looking Back to where it all started.

With Valentine's Day behind us, it seems like the perfect Friday for February's Just the Ticket List Lookback, and even though the holiday is over (originally a feasting day to honor the namesake Saint who ministered to--and allegedly performed wedding ceremonies for--persecuted Christians during the Roman Empire, but is now an excuse for card, chocolate, flower, and jewelry merchants to profit off the horniness of the YDAFOC crowd--that's "Young, Dumb, and Full Of ahem," and it's a fitting coincidence that the acronym sounds like it does...), please continue to share the love by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment your true feelings at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read, and choo-choo-choose me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest heart-shaped boxes of news on my content.

In movies (and, as those movies would have us believe, in real life), the customary way to begin telling a flashback story is with "It All Started...." It's like the "dark and stormy night" of flashback cliches, and can be just as cringe if used too often.

But it is the chief storytelling mechanic of today's List Lookback selection, One Night At McCool's (which is where our three main characters each say "it all started").

One Night At McCool's was directed by Harald Zwart (who brought us Agent Cody Banks and wrote its sequel, as well as the first and only Mortal Instruments movie, and The Kung-Fu Kid--I mean, the Karate Kid remake starring the son of Cipher Rage) and dedicated to its late writer, Stan Seidel. It is what I'm calling a "funk noir" comedy, and has long been my answer to the question, "what's your favorite movie?"

One Night At McCool's all started with Johnny Cash's "Wanted Man" (serving as a theme song of sorts and foreshadowing later events in the movie), leading into former bartender Randy (Employee Of the Month star Matt Dillon, who isn't the best at giving emotional line reads, but maybe it's a matter of direction here?) telling a hitman (Michael Douglas) about his new target: an off-and-on con-woman named Jewel (Liv Tyler) who stole his heart and turned him into a thief and accessory to murder so she could redecorate his house to look like an 80s porn theater designed by Andy Warhol and whoever made that lamp from A Christmas Story.

Meanwhile, a sleazy, self-important lawyer named Carl (but I repeat myself, who is also Randy's father's wife's brother, or something, played by Paul Reiser) is telling his therapist (Reba McEntire, Tremors) about the woman he met at the titular bar where his cousin works (who also happens to be Jewel), and the various real or imagined sexual encounters he had with her, including his awakening to a submission fetish that is uncomfortably hilarious.

And meanwhile, a religious police officer (John Goodman) is telling his priest (Richard Jenkins) about--guess what?--the woman he met after investigating the death of a criminal named Utah (who just so happens to be Jewel's ex-boyfriend and partner in crime, played by Andrew "Dice Clay" Silverstein, looking incomprehensibly younger and healthier than he ever did during his stand-up career twenty years prior) that happened--guess where?--One Night At McCool's.

Though some of his line reads are off, Dillon does a great job with the subtle variations on the Randy character that pop up in the alternate tellings of events, whether it be the carefree goofball from Carl's version, the abusive, Sopranos-esque boyfriend from the officer's version, or his own, victim-of-circumstance perspective on things. The supporting cast are strong, as well, with the exception being Liv Tyler as Jewel. Though she gives the sex appeal scenes her all (each of the men have a "hair metal car wash video" fantasy sequence about her that undoubtedly caused many a Liv Tyler crush back in the day), and can turn out a sinister smirk with the best of them, her line delivery has kind of a one-note, watered-down Marylin Monroe quality to it that would wear thin pretty quickly, even if she wasn't playing a triple-timing manipulator who wants to turn One NIght At McCool's into a feature-length DVD Player commercial. I mean, seriously; who just calls it a DVD? DVDs are the discs you put in the machine, not the machine itself! There's a reason why (when they still commercially existed) VHS and VCR had different names. One was the media cassette, and one was the player. I could go on an even more confusing rant about Blu-Ray and how both things are Blu-Ray and it's also a Blu-Ray player even though it also functions as an upscaling DVD player, but that's a New Piece Offerings topic for another day that I don't have enough to say about, so I'll shut up and get back to not shutting up about One Night At McCool's (which I own a copy of in DVD format because it's my favorite movie...I say before issuing further criticisms).

The cinematography is also...full of interesting choices, like the abundant use of fish-eye lenses and extreme closeups like it's a lost Ernest movie crossed with a 2000s rap music video, and the post-production effect on Jewel in the fantasy scenes that makes her look like her scenes were run through a red/blue 3-D filter, rotoscoped, and smeared with Vaseline in an attempt to give her a "glow."

Although the preceding amount of plot-convenience is so eye-rollingly ponderous that one dare not suspend disbelief without some reliable heavy machinery close at hand, the finale, wherein Randy, Carl, the officer, and the hitman all head to Randy's old house with various romantic and homicidal intentions toward Jewel, is a sight to behold. The comedy and suspense build and disparate perspectives collide...only for Utah's polar opposite twin brother, Elmo (also played by "the Diceman," whom I cannot say enough good things about in this dual role; there's just something about Andrew Dice Clay looking his full height--5'11"--and brandishing heavy weapons in business-casual, glasses, and a preppie haircut that breaks my brain in the most fun way I can currently think of), to show up looking for revenge.

Andrew Dice Clay as Utah
(top, with Matt Dillon's Randy)
and Elmo (bottom)

Instead, he finds John Goodman looking like an out-of-shape CHiPs extra, Paul Reiser in DIY bondage gear, and Matt Dillon also being there, like some kind of Village People cover band who haven't found their Indian yet. There's some homophobic writing here that hasn't aged well, but the ensuing shootout between Elmo and the guys, backed by "YMCA," is tons of fun, and One Night At McCool's sticks the landing with one of the best foreshadowed and most visually memorable ending shots of all time.

Granted, it does lose some impact on repeat viewing, simply because it is so shockingly, absurdly memorable, but other than The Retaliators and Pulp Fiction, I cannot immediately think of another movie that has made me go, "I don't know what the fuck I just watched, but I loved it!"

So, yeah. Twenty-something years after I saw it for the first time, is it the best movie ever made? No. I never thought that before, and after researching it and understanding more about the art of film in the intervening years, I think it even less now. The writing is flawed, cliche'd, and overly convenient, the editing and camera choices are certainly choices that were made by someone in the early 2000s who was trying to capture the worst that the 80s and 90s had to offer by way of the best genre the 50s had to offer, and the acting on the part of Matt Dillon and Liv Tyler lacked dimension, moreso with the latter. But is One Night At McCool's fun? Oh, hell yes! Take the plunge!

B-

Nostalgia prevented me from being as harsh in the scoring as I was in the criticizing, as did the fun factor. Even though I rated Pulp Fiction lower than I would have liked, I had to ask myself two questions: "Is One Night At McCool's a better movie than Pulp Fiction?" and "Is it more fun than Pulp Fiction?" The first question goes without asking because Tarantino is Tarantino and Zwart is responsible for Pink Panther 2. But the second question is a bit more complicated because Pulp Fiction is so smartly written and quotable, and One Night At McCool's has Andrew Dice Clay playing twins and Paul Reiser in bondage gear getting turned into ketchup by a falling dumpster. So the B minus here seemed like a fair compromise.

Once again, please continue to share the love by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment your true feelings at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read, and choo-choo-choose me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest heart-shaped boxes of news on my content.

Ticketmaster,

Looking Back,

Plunging Out.