Shot on the cheap in an anonymous-looking Oklahoma City, with a cast of nobodies, you might think former SNL cast member Chris Kattan would stand out as a professional who has worked in film before. In this aimless affair you end up staring at him with amazement that anyone suspected he ever had talent. This amateurish fiasco brings up a curiosity: At one point this was titled
Just Crazy Enough. The mind reels as to what caused the title change, but more vexing is what exactly anyone thought had been improved with the truncated title?
In this rote affair (which was released last fall in the Middle East) Kattan plays a dual role of Fred and Ted, twins unknowingly separated at birth. One is a psychiatrist, the other an in-patient at a psychiatric facility. Of course they end up flipping roles and hilarity – uh, it flees rather than ensues. Time to crack open this discount affair lying on the slab and catalogue the maladies.
00:00:38 Exploratory Story Incision
The backstory is supplied via a crudely drawn, and barely animated credit sequence. Twin babies were left on the doorstep of an orphanage; one was slack-jawed and lazy-eyed and he was dispatched by limousine to the doorstep of a mental institution.
The ease of selective internment of our challenged citizens based on such capricious desires is a scathing indictment of this nation’s attitude towards mental-health care!
00:01:27 Septic Introduction
We now get to see the grown up results: one man is a disheveled mook, the other a pampered professional. Considering each is played by Chris Kattan they both look like the medicated landscaper guy wandering uninvited into a kids birthday party.
00:02:53 Plot Stimulant
Kattan’s psychiatrist is Dr. Frederick Mulberry, who for inexplicable reasons is the toady of Phineas Philbrook, a corporate executive running for governor. He orders Fred to drive out to a mental institution to fill out some random paperwork. We get the sense that Philbrook is the villain of this affair, but not through any work on the part of the screenplay.
00:03:38 Elevated Foreshadow Levels
Fred is regarded as an embarassment by his teenaged kids, and he lives in the pool-house because his wife is an intolerant harpy too focused on starting her own organic granola bar business. If only some sort of implausible plot contortion could take place to save this family unit!
00:07:46 Weakened Impulse
The rude director of the psychiatric facility demeans his head nurse as he tells her Dolores, a patient turning 18, will not be released as planned. This seems like it could be the fulcrum of the plot, but only based on prior movie viewing experience. It turns out the audience will have to do much of the work on behalf of this story.
00:09:20 Comedic Arrest
Behold a comedy professional at work. Dr. Fred’s phone rings and it takes Kattan eleven seconds of histrionic genuflecting to simply extract it from his suit pocket.
00:10:14 Ruptured Visual
After going missing Teddy is located by the head nurse, on a riding lawn mower. See, he’s a crazy guy, so it’s hilarious! (Oh this is going to be slog . . .)
00:11:03 Adverse Activity
Dr. Frederick is so consumed with his personal plight of getting splashed by a passing truck that he signs official documents at the front desk without so much as scanning the file. Reminder; he is a health care “professional”.
00:14:53 Cauterized Plot Cavity
We need to have Fred and Ted flip roles somehow. The doctor is so entirely drenched that he has to take a shower at the facility -- naturally. Ted gets loose once again and in the showers he steals Fred’s phone, I.D., and
spare suit.
You know, the three-piece suit he just happened to bring with him, for absolutely no discernible reason, except that it served the script writer’s need? Yep, that one.
00:16:03 Invasive Pathos
In the showers Fred is detained by the staff and brought back to the room as Teddy, largely because Kattan looks insane and behaves with a second-nature derangement.
00:17:57 Ruptured Visual
The production obviously felt they had a seasoned comedic professional at their disposal so Kattan is given free rein to clownishly mug throughout. Here he is granted one-and-a-half minutes of screen time to do nothing more than exiting the building with a drawn out series of spastic body contortions.
00:22:39 Arrested Physics
Teddy is overwhelmed by automobiles to a severe degree; the windshield wipers, for instance, induce panic. However we need him to infiltrate Fred’s family life, so despite this crippling anxiety he manages to successfully navigate the 2 hour car ride to their home.
00:25:19 Commercial Toxicity
The production wants you to join Teddy in marveling at the grocery display of an armored tank, brought to you by Cheez-It crackers.
00:25:49 Iatrogenic Direction
“Say Chris, we need a little comedic punch here. What if your Teddy character had trouble with the shopping carts?! Just go with it and ad-lib something funny, should be great!, Annnd – ACTION!”
00:30:02 Cauterized Plot Cavity
In the cafeteria Dolores reveals to Fred her plight of remaining incarcerated because,
"There’s a doctor I don’t even know that signed a form to keep me in here.” This means there are many items this film does not feel the need explaining:
• Why did Philbrook need to send Fred to sign the forms?
• What motivated Philbrook to have the girl originally committed?
• How does a girl in a sanitarium affect Philbrook’s campaign?
These questions, and others, will be unaddressed so your familiarity with movie tropes will be needed to fill in the gaps.
00:44:17 Blunt-Force Dialogue
During an impromptu session with Dolores we get a peek into the crackling intellect that is Dr. Fredrick Mulberry:
“
Your Mom is your Mom – and YOU are you. Does that make sense?
00:54:29 Chronicle Seizure
Fred endeavors to escape. We are subjected to six and one half minutes of him skulking around the facility, all to acquire patient files on Dolores and Ted. This lengthy segment is revealed as not less than vital, but POINTLESS! After this the two files go completely ignored and
never get referenced again.
00:55:28 Plot Stimulant
At the home, before everyone goes to sleep, Teddy has a tender moment with Fred’s wife and both kids. I debate if this is a sign of how dense the family is since they have not pegged him as an out-patient, or if it is an indictment on Fred’s normal mental instability.
00:59:05 Cauterized Plot Cavity
In Fred’s outcast pool-house abode Teddy goes online and manages to figure out crucial information about the disreputable Phineas Philbrook. He does this by visiting exactly two home pages in a matter of roughly 12 seconds.
01:02:46 Cranial Atrophy
For reasons never detailed Teddy is inspired to investigate Philbrook’s office, so he poses as a janitor. A security guard stops him, sternly challenges the details of his cover story – and promptly gives him directions to Philbrook’s office.
01:04:02 Iatrogenic Direction
In yet another long and unproductive scene we watch Teddy search Philbrook’s office, try unsuccessfully to get on the candidate’s computer, and root around cabinets, all to come up with exactly ZERO in the way of gleaning a single new fact.
01:07:46 Locale Anethesia
Fred’s son wants to ride across town to a boat yard to witness a solar eclipse with his telescope. His bike ride allows for the film crew to capture the splendor of Oklahoma City.
01:16:38 Invasive Pathos
A scene of triumph for the Mulberry family. The son begins to drift into a lake because he felt a floating dock was an optimal place for telescope usage, over firm land. A tense rescue now takes place as he is all of ten feet from shore.
Teddy nearly drowns in the waist-deep water (somehow) and the dramatic ordeal culminates when the kid simply tosses a rope to Mom.
01:25:33 Weakened Impulse
Fred gets a collection of patients to help him spring Dolores out of solitary confinement and escape the facility. The scene carries all the tension and drama of a preliminary round of a regional BOGGLE tournament.
01:32:29 Fiscal Laceration
Despite never knowing who Dolores’ father is the escapees decide to drive over to where Philbrook is holding his press conference . . . for no damned reason at all. News of the escape reaches the political team and they beef up security at the rally, for some reason.
Behold what passed for a passionate political crowd in this micro-budget affair.
01:36:50 Cranial Atrophy
The half-assed plan involves some of the nutz-os needing to tamper with the public-address system. Know what is dumber than distracting the sound technician by having a pre-teen ask him for his autograph? Having that sound technician oblige the request as if it were completely normal.
01:38:02 Collapsed Climax
Dolores confronts Philbrook, the father she stated not ever knowing. Now she gets him to admit he fathered her, then incarcerated her, to hide the truth of his bastard child. His political career is instantly derailed because his microphone broadcasts the entire conversation. His admission was heard by everyone in the crowd of dozens – everyone except Philbrook himself. He continues talking despite his echoing words playing across the plaza.
POST MORTEM
With a lone exception to a regular on the TV series
The Middle Kattan has been devolving in recent years. He has put out painfully unfunny direct-to-disc titles for a while now, proving his career highlight stands as
Corky Romano. Seriously, consider THAT for a moment.
The largest problem here is staging a film in a mental health facility while exhibiting hostility towards your prospective audience. Between the infantile screenplay and unleashing the painfully unfunny Chris Kattan on viewers it is obvious that the creative team behind this film needs to be committed after making this film.