No Heroin, No Creepy Babies, Sigh

This movie isn't complete shit. It has its moments. Ewan MacGregor and Cameron Diaz are two of the most watchable stars in movies. Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo do their best with the shitty crazed angel storyline. There is enough originality to differentiate it from the rest of the gun crazy love stories out there.

I'd even recommend it as harmless fluff if I had not sat in my seat expecting such greatness, being so disappointed by such schmaltz. Created by the same talent that brought us the brilliantly creepy Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, it should have been orgasmic. Instead Hodge and Boyle tossed out the happy-go-lucky cynicism of their previous ventures and tried to break into the overtly romantic and cheerful school of movies. The departure from form is too abrupt. Everyone seems to be grasping for artistry that is beyond their current talents and the failure is painfully obvious.

For the first half hour the movie isn't so awful. The police precinct version of Heaven is silly , but Boyle usually can turn silliness to his advantage. Delroy Lindo and Holly Hunter as two angels lend credibility to the angel bullshit as they assigned to the love lives of Ewen MacGregor, a janitor/failed trash novelist, and Cameron Diaz, beautiful amoral heiress. Soon Ewen MacGregor finds himself in the middle of a kidnap plot with Cameron Diaz as the control freak "victim"; while the angels try to push them together in sitcom style plotting.

Ewen MacGregor and Cameron Diaz together are amazing. MacGregor's bumbling perpetually frustrated kidnapper is perfect foil to Diaz's world-weary heiress. Since MacGregor's character has never kidnapped anyone before, Diaz helps him every step of the way; training him in the threatening phone call and even cutting herself for the perfect ransom note. They work brilliantly together in perfect comic timing . For them alone this movie is at least worth watching at second run theater or on video.

Sadly all this fun has to be sacrificed in the love story. After the high point; a Karaoke scene in which MacGregor and Diaz slaughter a perfectly innocent Tony Bennet standard. everything following is a jumble of mistaken identities and over-the-top angel games. It's not that Holly Hunter's crazed angel character isn't fun to watch. It's just that she doesn't belong in this particular movie. The police precinct Heaven material doesn't get any less silly, and in the end is simply annoying.

Even as the movie wears on you; there are still fun moments. The fact that every single character has to have a gun on him at all times is a cute parody of the excessive violence in most contemporary art movies. I liked the claymation end credits. The evil dentist ex-boyfriend adds a few laughs. None of these saves the movie from itself. The plot gets so jumbled, and you spend so much time watching scenes that are either way too cute or way too silly, that by the the end you just wish it would be over.

I hope that Boyle and Hodge continue to direct and write movies and to experiment in style and tone. This was their first Hollywood movie and the restrictions placed upon them by executives could very well have destroyed some of the potential brilliance of this movie. Else, they could have just fucked up on their own. Still if it this movie was a failure, it was an interesting failure. It is also a hope that Ewen MacGregor and Cameron Diaz continue to star in movies together. Make your own Tracey and Hepburn comparisons. Unfortunately, for all the nice things that I can say about this movie I can't say that it was worth $7.