Free Enterprise (1998)

Director:

Robert Meyer Burnett

Writers:

Mark A. Altman (writer) &
Robert Meyer Burnett (writer)

Release Date:

4 June 1999 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

The Shat hits the fan

Plot:

Young filmmakers (Rafer Weigel, Eric McCormack) trying to hawk a movie titled "Bradykillers" about a serial killer who goes after victims Marcia...

Plot Keywords:

Satire | X Men | Answering Machine | Ménage À Trois | Actor Playing Himself

Awards:

4 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Eric McCormack	...	Mark
Carl Bressler	...	Mort Berg
Ethan Glazer	...	Young Mark
Phyllis Franklin	...	Ticket Taker
Brandon Kleyla	...	Young Kevin
Thomas Hobson	...	Richard
Marilyn Kentz	...	Gail - Mark's Mom
Spencer Klein	...	Young Robert
Mickey Cassidy	...	Bully
Rafer Weigel	...	Robert
Jennifer Sommerfield	...	Tricia
Tricia Cruz	...	Mexican Waitress (as Latricia Cruz)
Annika Brindley	...	Astrid
William Shatner	...	Bill
Michael Altman	...	Eden Waiter

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality and language.

Runtime:

113 min | 121 min (extended version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Germany:6 | Australia:M | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Culver City, California, USA

Company:

Mindfire Entertainment

Trivia:

The credit "The Artist Formerly Known as Shatner in "William Shatner vs. the World Crime League'" is a reference to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), which featured a similar credit at the end of the film, referring to a never-made sequel that appears to have been retooled by John Carpenter into Big Trouble in Little China (1986). The original "World Crime League" reference seems to be a nod to a similar credit at the end of Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975).

Goofs:

Plot holes: The movie takes place in 1998 just before Mark's 30th birthday party, putting his birthday in 1968. However, in the flashback scene of Mark trying to get into Star Trek: The Motion Picture Mark says his age is 12 when asked by the women in the ticket stand, despite the fact that Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979 and the movie itself says 19 years earlier. This would make Mark already 30 by the time the film is taking place in 1998.

Quotes:

Mark: She made Forrest Gump look like a candidate for Mensa.

Movie Connections:

References Titanic (1997)

Soundtrack:

Glow in the Dark

Shatner is brilliant, but the rest is just a tedious Nrrdboy fantasy

Robert Meyer Burnett's `Free Enterprise' is several movies all at once-unfortunately only one of them is interesting.

Film #1: The original and witty masterpiece. Two aspiring yet unsuccessful filmmakers run into William Shatner in a Hollywood bookstore. The two pop culture-obsesses slackers have both been Star Trek fanatics since birth and are appropriately awestruck by the realization of their dreams. They soon find out, however, that the real William Shatner is a pathetic, wacked-out loser who befriends the pair only because he thinks they can help him get backing for his latest film project, a 5-hour musical version of William Shakespeare's `Julius Caesar' in which he will play every role. And, in a very clever plot twist, it is not Captain Kirk who helps the two Trekkie nerds get their lives together, but the other way around. Everyone eventually finds love and fulfillment, and it all ends with William Shatner performing a kickass rap version of Marc Anthony's soliloquy.

Film #2: The painful movie. A tedious rip-off of `Swingers' in which two single guys and their friends experience the joys and anguish of dating, mating, growing up, and trying to hang onto their youth, yadda, yadda. ZZZZZZzzzzz. The twist is that in this version the hip CocktailVegasMoneyBabyHoneyDaddy culture has been replaced with the PopCultureComicBookMovieNerdStarWarsStarTrek fanboy culture. In fact, if not for this trading of Sinatra for Captain Kirk, the film would border on plagiarism.

Film #3: The Fantasy. In which guys who hang out in comic book stores also date myriad gorgeous Hollywood actress-models.

Unfortunately for those sucked in by the copy on the video and DVD packaging, the `Film #1' part of `Free Enterprise' only takes up about 10 or 12 total minutes of screen time.

Apparently, the people who marketed this film on video and dvd were the only ones involved in this project smart enough to know that the Shatner subplot, `film #1,' was the move that `Free Enterprise' really should be.

Obviously the majority of the film's storylines and amusing incidentals should have been relegated to subplots in support of `film #1'-ie, the relationship between the Nrrrds and William Shatner. An hour of Shatner, and maybe twenty minutes with the boys and their love problems, and we would have had a potentially fantastic movie.

And I don't want to sound like everything non-Shatner in the film is bad-it's not. It is amusing in spurts, and much better acted than most ultra-low budget flicks. Some of the dialogue is witty, with lots of funny pop culture references for thirty-sumpthin's. There is much goodness for those with a quick remote control finger. But I also have to say that a lot of the dialogue-and I mean a LOT-is dull, repetitious, and amateurishly unnecessary (I mean, really-after the scene in which the boys meet the real William Shatner only to find out he's a pathetic wacko, do we really need to hear this kind of dialogue in the following scene: `Hey, I get fired from my job, my girlfriend bails on me, I finally meet my childhood hero Captain Kirk, and he turns out to be a pathetic wacko! I can't believe my life!' This kind of sub-sitcom yak should have been left for the trailer.). Then again, the sight and sound of the William Shatner rapping Shakespeare while a crew of homies gits jiggy wit it behind him honestly is the height of brilliance. A lot can be forgiven for the filmmakers who made that happen.

So, someone in the biz needs to make Robert Meyer Burnett rich by purchasing the remake rights to `Free Enterprise' before William Shatner dies of old age. Maybe someone will even give Burnett the money to do it himself. But this time they need to go with `film # 1.'