Unfortunately, the talent didn't do much for this pedestrian, uninspired movie. Demme said after the film that he was inspired by the French New Wave (he asked the audience who had heard of the New Wave, and maybe 25% raised their hands -- how distressing for a group of supposed film buffs, although I shouldn't be surprised, because true film buffs wouldn't talk during the movie, walk in 20 minutes after the movie started and petulantly stomp all over the sold-out theater looking for a seat, start playing games on their cell phones and/or Gameboys halfway through the film, insist that Charade was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and know Thandie Newton only from Mission: Impossible 2).
Sorry, got off track there. Anyway, Demme said that the jarring, pointless shots inserted randomly throughout the movie that make it look like the worst MTV show ever (he didn't exactly describe them that way) were inspired by New Wave movies like Shoot the Piano Player (from which he also borrows singer/actor Charles Aznavour), and that he didn't want to take the movie too seriously. He used the word "preposterous" often, in a good way. And he also noted that, watching Charade, you could never tell that the New Wave was going on all around them in Paris. So, from what I can gather, he wanted it to be a kind of glossy, lightweight, edgy, artistic film.
He certainly succeeded on the "lightweight" part. The movie tramples over the fine line that separates "witty" from "stupid," and unfortunately the stupid stuff was often all that kept me awake. It tediously weaves its web of conspirators and liars all trying to get a large sum of money that Newton's dead husband (the titular Charlie) supposedly had; they all assume Newton has it, but she's got no idea where it might be. It's the kind of movie where the first part of the ending features people gazing meaningfully at each other (after a John Woo, multiple-gun face-off) and then smiling warmly and chuckling a bit, which segues into the end of the ending, where everyone falls in love in a most repulsively saccharine way. Oh, and the kind of movie where just about everyone wears a wretchedly fake mustache at some point.
Newton is enjoyable, and Robbins lets a little goofiness escape now and then, but sadly Wahlberg is more in Planet of the Apes mode than Three Kings, coasting blandly through his role. Lisa Gay Hamilton and Joong-Hoon Park, two members of a menacing gang also after the money, are good in too small roles. The music would have been excellent if it hadn't also been deafening; the soundtrack might be worthwhile.
As you can tell, I stayed for a bit of the Q & A afterwards with Demme and Newton, and they were interesting at first, but Demme never addressed why he decided to remake Charade -- he said several times that it wasn't meant to be a copy of the original, but more of an interpretation or homage (though he did say that he'd been looking to do another movie with Newton, and he thought of her instantly while watching Charade -- Newton, though, begged not to be compared to Audrey Hepburn). I would have asked him myself, but I was disheartened by the uncritical critic moderating the discussion and fawning all over Demme, as well as the exceptionally stupid and embarrassing questions other audience members were asking. Like the woman who begged him to hire her as a personal assistant and the one who gushed that all of Demme's movies are masterpieces and so is this one. The prizewinner, though, was a prick near the front who sneered, "I can kind of see the Thandie Newton/Audrey Hepburn similarity, but replacing Cary Grant with... [maximum disdain and disgust] ...Mark Wahlberg?" Demme replied lasciviously, "Did you see the scene where he takes off his shirt?" (good answer!) and went on to patiently reiterate that he never intended to make a photocopy (Newton evidently realized that if the prick didn't listen to her the first time, there was no point in restating that she was not meant to be Audrey Hepburn). At this point, I realized that there was little chance any remaining questions would fall outside the fawning, supercilious, or dumbass categories, so I left.
But, hey, it was free, and I got to see Thandie Newton and Jonathan Demme (even if I didn't bring my camera and shove my way into the front row and take non-stop photos of them with an inordinately bright flash until I was asked to stop -- just hypothetically, understand. Not that anyone was rude enough to actually do that. No, two people were rude enough to do that).
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