'3BlackChicks Review...'
SUPER SUCKER (2002) Rated R; running time 90 minutes Studio: Purple Rose Films Genre: Comedy Seen at: Celebration Cinema (Lansing, Michigan) Official site: http://www.supersuckerthemovie.com/ IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0293624 Written by: Jeff Daniels Directed by: Jeff Daniels Cast: Jeff Daniels, Matt Letscher, Kate Peckham, Sandra Birch, Harve Presnell, John Seibert, Guy Sanville, Michelle Mountain, Will Young, Suzi Regan, Dawn Wells
Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2003 Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/2003reviews/bamssupersucker.html
SUPER SUCKER has no morally redeeming values. It lacks a soft juicy center. It is devoid of funk.
And like Jeff Daniel's ESCANABA IN DA MOONLIGHT before it, SUPER SUCKER made me laugh. And laugh. And laugh some more. Damn him.
THE STORY (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**) All his life, Fred Barlow (Jeff Daniels) wanted to be a vacuum salesm...um, pardon my french; I mean "Super Sucker Distributor". But Johnson City, Michigan wasn't big enough for two of 'em: Fred Barlow Enterprises has a thorn in its side, in the body of competing distributor Winslow Schnaebelt (Harve Presnell) and his team. Through various underhanded schemes, Winslow threatens to take away Fred's most loyal customers. And Fred's not havin' that.
To stop the constant bickering between them, the grandson of the inventor of the original Super Sucker, challenges the rival 'bangers to a contest: he who has the most sales by the end of thirty days, gets the entire territory. And of course, both men quickly accept the challenge - before thinking the consequences through.
Winston, who has a much better organized team effort, proceeds to trounce Fred at first. Fred and his band of misfits - including new convert Howard Butterworth (Matt Letscher) - seem to be outwitted, and get discouraged. But just as he's about to give up, Fred gets inspiration from the strangest of sources: his wife Bunny (Michelle Mountain) - and the "Homemaker's Little Helper": a long-since discontinued vacuuming attachment that she uses to get to those "hard-to-reach places"...
THE UPSHOT Actually, it's the inevitable comparison between SUPER SUCKER and ESCANABA IN DA MOONLIGHT that serve to highlight the shortcomings of the former. Where ESCANABA lovingly described That Old Michigan Feeling, SUPER SUCKER never quite captures the Michigan groove; it barely has much of a "midwestern" twist to it. Considering the mostly-Michigan crew, and the fact that it was shot entirely in Michigan, except for the obvious identifiable (to us Michiganders) landmarks, this film could've been shot in Anywhere, USA, and not have changed all that drastically. Sure, writer/director Jeff Daniels never stated that all his movies had to be about Michigan-proper; but it worked wonderfully for ESCANABA. Maybe I'm just spoiled.
But more importantly, SUPER SUCKER and Daniels himself, failed to capture the groove of its story's participants. Here, the bulk of the characters are treated as punchlines to numerous (and, some damned funny) set ups. They weren't drawn very well at all, except to show that they each had this weird habit of dressing in strange outfits. Of the main cast, only Daniels and Letscher (who reminded me a whole lot of a younger David Hyde Pierce, of FRASIER fame) get anything close to character development; most everyone else could easily be described in the credits as "Character B Eating Ice Cream" or "Salesman In Red Jacket". Packaged a little differently, softened up a bit, this could easily have been the fodder of a TV sitcom. That's not necessarily A Bad Thing, but it does give you a general idea of what direction this movie took.
[Though, in the tradition of Vol E. Ball of CAST AWAY fame, I must give a shout out to Suck, The Magic Hose; he deserves at least an MTV Movie Award for that bedroom scene with Daniels and Mountain].
All that said, I laughed, uncontrollably at times. Eventually, I gave up fighting it, and let this dumb and dumberer movie suck me in. It threatened to lose me at its long, drawn-out conclusion; but if laughing at a silly, harmless film is the worst thing I do all year, I'm ahead of the game.
BAMMER'S BOTTOM LINE Ok, so it's not Shakespeare. But daggonit, I laughed my behind off. And isn't that what a comedy's for?
SUPER SUCKER rating: flashing yellowlight
Rose "Bams" Cooper Webchick and Editor, 3BlackChicks Review Entertainment Reviews With Flava! Copyright Rose Cooper, 2003 EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com http://www.3blackchicks.com/
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