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DECENCY: <I> ZOOLANDER</I> AND <I>DINNER RUSH</I>

Written by movies  |  01. October 2001

by Ben Kenigsberg Zoolander is a comedy about an incredibly dim-witted male model who only has one pose. Derek Zoolander, the model in question, is played by Ben Stiller, a comic actor who pretty much also only has one pose. While he often gets cast in nebbishy roles, the essence of Stiller's brand of humor (except in Keeping the Faith) is meanness. He's hateful in admittedly funny films like Flirting with Disaster and There's Something About Mary. Meet the Parents turns sour when his character stops being an innocent victim and paints a stripe on a cat to make it look like De Niro's. Stiller's Zoolander character makes fun of ugly people, trivializes the lives of impoverished children, and even tries a blackface gag. Except for the blackface gag, all of the above could be funny, but Stiller is so one-note that his schtick starts to seem like a reject from Saturday Night Live. Derek Zoolander is less like Austin Powers than like the football player in high school who got all the girls -- for what reason, you never knew. But even though Zoolander is funniest when Stiller isn't on screen, it's good Stiller hasn't totally neutered his comedy. This summer, American Pie 2 actually gave us a glimpse of how a wholesome gross-out comedy might look. In an age where offending viewers is the last priority on Hollywood's checklist, you have to tip your hat to a guy like Stiller -- a comedian who, as far as I can tell, is completely out of touch with standards of modern decency. That's not a bad thing -- some of the best comedies are the most offensive -- but Stiller can't forge his film into a raunchy satire of the fashion world, which is what he's aiming for. Stiller, who directed and co-wrote the movie, is at his best when he's lampooning models' lifestyles, but even then, there are bigger laughs in Douglas Keeve's fashion-world documentary Unzipped (1995). The best gag in the film involves an awards show for male models -- a wannabe Oscars -- in which Fabio wins Best "Model 'Slash' Actor." The award is, apparently, one step below Best Model. Derek loses that coveted award to Hansel (Owen Wilson), a surfer-mentality model ("I didn't want to be an astronaut -- I was more interested in what bark was made of") who's just a hair less self-absorbed than Derek. The loss of the award, plus the damage caused by a profile written by Time Magazine journalist Matilda Jeffries (Christine Taylor), throws Derek's career into a tailspin. Big-shot designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell) finally recruits Derek to model for a new line of clothing, called Derilicte, inspired by the garb of New York's hobos. (Half a chuckle.) Derek doesn't know that Mugatu actually wants to brainwash him and instruct him to kill the prime minister of Malaysia, who's anti-sweatshop and thus, bad for the fashion industry. Stiller has surprisingly little fun spoofing The Manchurian Candidate, although he throws in a not-half-bad homage to The Parallax View. His 2001 spoof, though, is priceless. If there's saving grace in Zoolander, it comes from the supporting cast. Jerry Stiller, Ben's father, is quite funny as Maury Ballstein, an agent for New York's top models. Wilson can have a real comic charm when he's on his own; his slacker sensibility nicely counterbalances Stiller's lisping. Jon Voight has a funny cameo as Derek's coal-miner father. And David Duchovny shows up in an X-Files-inspired role to elicit a chuckle. Ferrell is surprisingly awful, and Taylor, Stiller's wife, is just eye candy. I suppose we can be thankful that Zoolander is closer in spirit to the comedy of the Marx Brothers than it is to the, er, comedy of The Cable Guy, Stiller's last unbridled directorial effort. But with all of Stiller's nasty ingredients, it's disappointing that Zoolander turned out to be a high-profile variation on Dumb and Dumber. The latest entry in the food-movie genre (think Big Night), Bob Giraldi's Dinner Rush, which played at last year's film festival, doesn't really have anything new to offer. But it does have a number of nicely observed moments, and it's particularly effective at evoking the feel of a place -- a TriBeCa restaurant -- even if, in this case, that place isn't far from home. Danny Aiello stars as the restaurant owner, Louis. His son Udo (Edoardo Ballerini), the chef, wants to make the restaurant a classy eatery -- replete with pretentious, elaborate dishes -- even though his father wants to serve simple, good Italian food. And Louis, whose partner was just murdered by the mob, has more important things on his mind. The movie is set almost entirely within the restaurant. As such, the most lively moments are bits of human interaction: a snoot (Mark Margolis) tells a waitress (Summer Phoenix) that he doesn't like her paintings, which hang on the restaurant's walls; a bartender gambles with customers, telling them he knows the answer to every question; a blackout forces the staff to light the restaurant with candles; and the sous chef (Kirk Acevedo) cooks sausage and peppers for Louis -- with Udo's begrudging permission. The film is sometimes stagy, but the restaurant really starts to feel like home after a while. Comfort food is all that Dinner Rush offers, but it's a decent meal.

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