The Movie Press
  • Movie Reviews
  • Twitter News/Updates
  • News & Notes
  • DVD
  • Box Office Results
  • Contact
  • About Us

Ugly Americans

7/3/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Let’s not belabor the point here, Tammy is beastly, unfunny, and misguided. Above all else, Tammy is the champion of the greatest lesson adhered to by the willfully ignorant who exert influence over all aspects of our culture. That critical lesson? Never learn anything.

Tammy, a vehicle with Melissa McCarthy’s finger prints all over it as writer, star, and wife of the director, begins as dull as it finishes. Tammy is booted from her job, discovers her husband is having an affair, and she’s forced to move back in with her mother. From all outward appearances, Tammy should be the sympathetic figure at the heart of this maelstrom. Instead, she’s simply a dolt who dictated these circumstances, but feels these consequences are unfair. Despite her inability to accomplish anything for herself, life owes her something.

From here, the story unfolds like poorly cut paper dolls replicating meaningless scene after meaningless scene, each as two dimensional as the last. Tammy and her hard drinking grandma—played by the woefully misused Susan Sarandon—go on a road trip to Niagara Falls. And just when it seems like the brain trust behind Tammy couldn't buy a less imaginative needle point kit from the Hobby Lobby stable, they add in a man. There are few scenes more painful than the interactions between Mark Duplass (The League, Creep) and Melissa McCarthy. Their dialogue is stilted and any growing warmth between the two is merely a byproduct of said warmth being the next plot point.

There is no arc more painful than the seemingly good woman who is just, heck, so in love with her special man child. When you switch the gender roles, it’s just as maddening. Herein lies the deeper problems of Tammy. Where it’d be easy to cite the clunky pacing, the overly long sequences, the tone deaf slapstick comedy, the film’s biggest problem is it has no sense of itself. It wants to be some kind of light satire, but it doesn't have the guts to even be an accidental satire a la white trash epic Joe Dirt. The film wants to feature these despicable misfits just trying to find their way, but is insistent these characters remain redeemable. Yes, I’m saying the movie would have been better if the characters were shittier.

There are two scenes which really define Tammy, one I’ll recount here, the other I’ll save for my big finish when I’m really stomping on that soapbox as the ivory tower wobbles beneath me. At some point Tammy and her grandmother have to seek refuge with Kathy Bates, Grandma’s cousin. Kathy Bates and Sandra Oh—like two road flares thrown into a black hole—are a well-to-do lesbian couple gearing up for their annual Fourth of July soiree. After a night of drinking, boob flashing, and giving a jet ski a Viking funeral (so much cringe), this pot of crap stew finally boils over. What happens? It doesn't matter, but alcohol causes the problem until Tammy is given a verbal kick in the ass from Bates…over beers of course.

Around here, after a nonsensical jump through time, the creators begin to mercifully draw the affair to a close. You could probably guess what happens as you've seen this flip-book of narrative stick figures thousands of times before, but Tammy gets her redemption. How? The film glosses over that, because salvation comes not from hard work and meaningful change, but getting what we want.

All of this, this everything Tammy, is distilled into a single moment. Near the beginning of the film, Tammy and her grandmother make a roadside stop and talk about, of all things, the Allman Brothers. Sitting on a stretch of two lane American asphalt, trying to pick out the harmonies in, “Midnight Rider,” the camera eye moves behind them and reveals they are sitting at the foot of grotesque wood carved statue, a bald eagle enshrined by an American flag. Like a moment drawn direct from the idealized America handbook, the sunlight dapples their faces, the outlaw lyrics warble from their throats, and they rest comfortably in the shadow of the eagle, erect and unbroken. It should be easy to know, but all I could think was, “I’m not sure if they are trying to get me to love America, or hate it.”

Tammy is not a love song to the socioeconomic downtrodden, poorly educated, unhealthy Middle American, it is a grim outgrowth of a culture desperate for this sort of icon. Relatable, misinformed on everything from politics to gender, divorced from the reality of actions and consequences, our hero remains swaddled in the protective blanket of ‘happy ending’. Not in any way earned, but simply because she’s entitled to it. 

— Monte Monreal

1 Comment
Glenn Larson
9/8/2015 04:27:15 am

Melissa McCarthy is a sad excuse for an actress and would not recommend this movie to the poorest white trash loser cause she fills that void with her nasty fat self.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    October 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    July 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    November 2008
    October 2008
    September 2008
    August 2008

    Categories

    All
    Austin Film Festival
    Darcie Duttweiler Reviews
    Derrick Mitcham Reviews
    Eric Harrelson Reviews
    Eric Pulsifer Reviews
    Eric Pulsifer Reviews
    Fantastic Fest
    Greg Maclennan Reviews
    Greg Wilson Reviews
    Jessica Hixson Reviews
    Mark Collins Reviews
    Monte Monreal Reviews
    Reviews
    Rob Heidrick Reviews
    Rob Heidrick Reviews
    Sxsw

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.