Home Fries

Bomb Rating: 

A simple,old-fashioned love symphony between two simpletons that has all the rhythm of an infant banging on a metal pot with a plastic rattle.

This film strikes me as something that screened in front of the typicalfocus group of 14-year-old boys who were then asked what they thought it needed. Let's see, if I'm a 14-year-old boy, and I've just had to sit through a PG-13 romantic comedy centered on small-town Southern hicks, specifically pregnant fast-food clerk Sally (Drew Barrymore), what do I want? Aside from Drew flashing me at every available opportunity, I'd go for the rumblings of a badass A.H.-1 Cobra Attack Helicopter.

Believe it or not, this is what happens. The film opens with Dorian (Luke Wilson) and his brother Angus (Jake Busey) scaring the bejesus out of their stepfather with the nifty attack helicopter they've borrowed from the National Guard. The appearance of this beast probably earned the attention of the otherwise inattentive teenage boys who were discovering what kind of smelly lint they could extricate from their belly buttons as worried studio executives looked on.

After the first appearance of the helicopter and Sally's inadvertent pick-up of the copter's radio frequency on her drive-through headphones (which prompts Dorian to go check her out), the suckered young boys are forced to sit through the entire film wondering when that badass helicopter is going to reappear. Meanwhile, they're treated to a simple, old-fashioned love symphony between two simpletons that has all the rhythm of an infant banging on a metal pot with a plastic rattle.

The love machinations of the slow-witted are that they don't say much and just sort of stare at each other in that same knowing way that animals stare at each other. The next step in the animal kingdom is to hoist oneself up on one's hind legs and reveal that beautiful pink erection then drive the lane, to use an apt basketball analogy. Fortunately, Luke Wilson doesn't go that far. He just stares at Drew and mumbles uncomfortably. The audience is supposed to think that this qualifies as romance -- when it may well be nothing more than gas.

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