There are two very good reasons not to see Paparazzi: its ideas, and its execution. Both are second-rate and disrespectful of the people they’re asking to shell out cash to see the movie.
This movie’s ideas are unpalatable, to say the least. It paints a world of simple black and whites, a world in which people have the depth of cardboard (and not even the corrugated variety) and in which it’s not just okay to take the law into your own hands – it’s admirable. The story is one of revenge at its most basic: a wholesome new Hollywood star (Cole Hauser) – so fresh that his licence plates still say ‘Montana’ on them – is harassed by degenerate celebrity photographers to the point that he and his family end up in a terrible car wreck. With his incredibly cute little son in a coma, and the paparazzi still coming at him ceaselessly, our hero finally snaps, first unintentionally going after one of his pursuers, and then enthusiastically setting out to do them in. The whites are whiter than white – the celebrity family is oh so nice and cute and humbly down-to-earth – and the blacks are darker than dark – the paparazzi (principally Tom Sizemore and Daniel Baldwin) are degenerate unshaven, boozing, sexual deviants without the slightest hint of a redeeming quality.
Paparazzi is simple and it panders to that element in the American culture that looks for scapegoats – one dimensional villains on which to blame our troubles and on whom we can pound without troubling our consciences. These are, after all, the scum of the earth. It’s a wonder the filmmakers didn’t make the paparazzi all folks of Middle Eastern origin.
This movie tells us that good guys play by their own rules, that vigilantism is A-OK, and that wussy stuff like psychotherapy is for losers. Women and children are weak (Robin Tunney, playing our hero’s wife, seems determined to prove that her only acting skill is that of making big eyes and looking terrified) and ‘the system’ will never do what needs to be done. This is the wild west of the 21st century, and we’re all on our own against the bad guys.
I realize that some movie goers won’t be turned off in the least by a movie with this mindset, but even those folks are likely to be disappointed by the way Hollywood hairdresser and television director-turned big screen filmmaker Paul Abascal has pulled together this second rate film. Start with an awful script, one that makes zero effort to flesh out any of its characters – not even the good guys. Screenwriter Forrest Smith probably thinks he’s been a smart one for tossing in a red herring along the way to make us think that maybe things are more complicated than they are on the surface, but this is a half-hearted effort that goes nowhere. And it’s not just the script that’s weak. Even the editing and continuity are poorly done – in one scene, detective Burton (Dennis Farina) cuffs one of the scumbags and curtly orders the uniformed cops around him to “get this guy out of here,” but then we cut to Burton hauling the guy out of there on his own. Oops.
If you don’t notice details that are badly handled in a movie, don’t mind one cliché scene after another, and love the idea of a world composed solely of good guys and bad guys, in which the good guys have every right to beat the guts out of the bad, then you might enjoy Paparazzi. The rest of us are well advised to steer clear.
Panders to that element in the American culture that looks for one dimensional villains on which to blame our troubles and on whom we can pound with clear consciences.- Brian Webster
