Big Trouble [HD]

Roll out the Cliche: Big Trouble = Big Laughs
I haven't yet read the Dave Barry novel from which this movie was adapted, yet I enjoyed it very much. Tim Allen plays Eliot Arnold, a former pulitzer prize winning journalist that wrote satirical columns, much like Barry, but is finally fired for overreacting to an order from his editor. He finds himself divorced and stuck in an advertising job that he loathes. On top of that, he can't get the respect of his son.

Rene Russo plays Anna Herk, the house wife of an executive that is embezzeling money from his employer, which earns him the sights of assassins (Dennis Farina among them). Her daughter is targeted by Allen's watergun toting sun in a school game of 'assassin' in which everyone draws names and attempts to 'terminate' their victim. Everyone seems to show up at Herk's house at once and things get confusing.

Before you know it, two dimwits have stolen an atomic bomb, that resembles a garbage disposal, from some Russian arms dealers, and they get tangled up in the plot...

"Big Trouble" has big laughs
It was sheer bad luck that "Big Trouble" was supposed to be released right around the time of the September 11 attacks. And even afterwards, parts of it (about bombs on planes and airport security) just didn't seem that funny anymore. Even so, it's a hilarious slapstick ride (well duh, it's based on a Dave Barry book)

Eliot Arnold (Tim Allen) has a job he hates, a car his son Matt (Ben Foster) hates, and a loud obnoxious client that everyone hates. A bomb in a footlocker arrives in Miami, in a lowlife bar run by Russian arms dealers. (No I am not making this up) Meanwhile, a pair of assassins called Henry (Dennis Farina) and Leo (Jack Kehler) arrive in Miami to shoot a crooked embezzling foot-fetishist businessman called Arthur Herk (Stanley Tucci). Their assassination plot goes awry when Matt leaps out at Arthur's stepdaughter Jenny (Zooey Deschanel) with a squirt gun, and is promptly tackled by Jenny and her mom Anna (Rene Russo, in a peroxide-blonde wig).

Eliot and Anna...

Not for the weak of humor
Big Trouble (based on the novel by Dave Barry) has a fast-paced, complicated plot that works as well on screen as it does in print. The story is like a knot in a shoelace -- when you try to pull on it, you just end up with more knots. There's an advertising guy (Tim Allen) whose son (Ben Foster) is supposed to shoot a girl (Zooey Deschanel) with a squirt gun as a part of a game at school. Meanwhile, a pair of hit men (Jack Kehler and Dennis Farina) are after the girl's step-dad (Stanley Tucci) - and his wife (Rene Russo) couldn't care less. There's a man (Jason Lee) living in their tree house who works for two Russians who sell weapons to the step-dad. Two small-time crooks (Tom Sizemore and Johnny Knoxville) stumble over the deal and decide to get a piece of the action. And then a pair of cops (Janeane Garofalo and Patrick Warburton), a pair of FBI agents (Omar Epps and Heavy D), and a giant toad get thrown in for a little extra fun.

Big Trouble is a wonderfully goofy movie -- but...

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