One Night at McCool's
Mike Shea
A Stereo? Well, I have a boombox but one speaker is broken so you can't really call it a stereo.

A review by Mike Shea Movie Rating: ( * * * * · ) DVD Rating: ( * * * · · )

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"What's it about?" is probably the most inconsequential way to find out how good a movie is. It is so common for people to write or discuss plots for movies that offer very little information in how good the movie really is. I suffer from this as much as anyone else which is why movies like One Night at McCool's almost gets lost when I try to describe it. A woman tricks and dupes three men into a world of crime so she can have a house. See how content-free that description is? How about this one. One Night at McCool's is the funniest movie of the year. One Night at McCool's is Rashomon meets The Big Lebowski. It's a great film.

Taking yourself seriously is one of the great failings of modern directors. Too many times producers wear down directors with market research and 3D pie charts to show how they should dumb-down their material. Luckily many movies like Liv Tyler is REALLY hot.

If the movie has one failing it is that the type of comedy is far more forceful than subtle. The great detail of the sets in The Big Lebowski makes each part funnier than the whole. Little bits of dialog have you chuckling three different ways each time you think about it. McCool's has guys in S&M gear getting crushed with dumpsters, it has two guys oogling a girl washing a car with her breasts, it has Matt Dyllon feeding frat boys liquor out of a toilet plunger. It is far from subtle.

The DVD of One Night is excellent. The vibrantly colorful picture has a 1.85 to 1 16x9 enhanced transfer and the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack fills the air with great music and powerful sound effects. There is a set of deleted scenes and a couple of small making-of features but no commentary and no DTS track. While many may wonder whether a movie such as this needs one, I would suggest that every movie should. You'd be surprised how much better it can be.

One Night at McCool's is one of those great gems that goes almost completely unheard of. I don't even remember why I rented it, but I am really glad I did. The only crime would be to have missed this one. Don't.