Movie Review: 'One Night at McCool's' warms no one
Julia Carachure www.facebook.com
There are plenty of movies out there without a plot, and "One Night At McCool's" is one of them.
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Campus Times
by Julia Carachure

Editorial Director

There are plenty of movies out there without a plot, and “One Night At McCool’s” is one of them.

While sitting in the dark movie theater, many women may be tempted to walk out on the film because this movie is intended for a male audiences, who are only there to check out Liv Tyler.

In the film, men literally fall at the feet of seductress Jewel (Tyler), whose talents include having sex and drinking water.

She also has no problem displaying some skin to her male victims. The victims involved in her plan include bartender Randy (Matt Dillon), police detective Charlie Dehling (John Goodman) and lawyer Carl (Paul Reiser). And they all meet her one night at McCool’s bar, where Randy works.

These men are confused about Jewel and they make it pretty obvious that they want to be with her. They all handle their feelings differently. Randy, who wants to get rid of her, visits Mr. Burmeister (Michael Douglas), a professional hit man. Carl decides to see a therapist, played by singer Reba McEntire. Charlie goes to his priest to talk to him about his feelings toward Jewel.

In a flashback, Randy tells Burmeister that he wants her dead because of incidents they had had in the past.

He tells him how he rescued Jewel from being raped by an oversized thug named Utah, who was really her partner-in-crime. The duo’s job is for Jewel to seduce the male victim, while Utah robs them.

Randy offers to take Jewel to his home. She immediately realizes that he has what she wants-a house that she can turn into a dream residence.

Initially, she was just supposed to keep Randy busy while Utah robbed him.

But Randy had nothing valuable, except the watch he was wearing. So he takes Utah to McCool’s to give him money, since Utah has threatened him. However, Utah never gets the money, since he winds up dead, and all blame points to Randy. Dehling is then called upon to investigate the crime scene, where he meets Jewel. She entices him as well.

For Dehling, Jewel reminds him of his late wife Theresa. To him, she is a living icon that represents everything that is good in the world.

He feels obligated to love Jewel and protect her from harm.

He disapproves of Randy because he thinks he is abusing her, which he is not.

Jewel moves in with Randy after the murder. She also brainwashes him to steal from others in order to pay for the bills because Randy refuses to get a job, after he is fired from McCool’s.

Carl, Randy’s cousin, also smitten by Jewel, sees her as a sexy vixen who he would like to have.

For him, Jewel is the one woman who can fulfill his kinky sex fantasies or so he thinks.

Randy is slowly getting frustrated by Jewel and wants to stop stealing things just because Jewel wants him to do so. (He is also sick of the dead bodies that fall after each robbery).

Jewel, knows that Randy will stop cooperating with her, and decides to get rid of him by convincing Dehling that Randy is indeed abusing her. When Dehling sees her with a black eye, he believes her stories. Randy is then slapped with a restraining order to keep him away from Jewel.

Burmeister guarantees to solve Randy’s “Jewel” problem for a hefty cost-$10,000. The money is paid by Randy so he can get his house back and get rid of Jewel and her influences once and for all.

There are also plenty of jokes and sexual innuendoes. One scene that the movie is already known for captures Tyler in a car washing scene where she is covered with suds and water.

In terms of performance, all these actors can do much better. The film overall needed a stronger female role than Tyler, perhaps a better actress could have warmed up the screen.

“One Night at McCool’s” is clearly slanted toward male audiences only. Ladies, this is not the movie for you-save your money and go somewhere else.