`Screwed’ disappoints in comedic attempt

In theaters

“Screwed,” written and directed by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Running time: 75 minutes, rated PG-13.

Sorry to disappoint, but Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski’s “Screwed” isn’t something you’ll find in one of those anonymous movie houses on 8th Avenue in New York or in the back room of any number of shadowy video stores across the country.

What it is, is a screwball comedy that features a black con man (Dave Chappelle) who sells chicken at Rusty’s Juicy Chicken Hole, another black man (Sherman Helmsley) who lies through his teeth to screw an elderly white woman out of $5 million, and a sweetly naive white man (Norm Macdonald) who goes through hell before enjoying a life this movie tells us he fully and richly deserves.

The film, which is the directorial debut of Alexander and Karaszewski, the screenwriting team who wrote “Ed Wood,” “Man on the Moon” and “The People vs. Larry Flint,” stakes some — but not all — of its comedy on its racial stereotypes. Whether audiences will turn out for it remains to be seen, but at my screening, the laughs were far bigger when the film’s obvious stereotypes weren’t being played for uncomfortable comedy.

The film stars Macdonald as Willard Fillmore, the verbally abused and woefully underappreciated chauffeur to the evil Virginia Crock (Elaine Stritch), a wealthy witch who’s made her fortune by selling pies.

But when the tightwad Crock won’t buy Willard a new suit or give him a raise, Willard claims he’s had enough and devises a plan with his friend Rusty (Chappelle) to kidnap Crock’s prized pooch and hold it for ransom.

Predictably, their plan falls spectacularly apart.

“Screwed” does score laughs in its physical comedy, some of which is reminiscent of the old Marx Brothers comedies of the ’30s and ’40s, but it eventually loses energy as the plot thickens with the addition of Danny DeVito as Grover, a creepy mortician who has, to say the least, several screws loose.

Grade: C

On video

“Sleepy Hollow,” directed by Tim Burton, written by Andrew Kevin Walker, based on Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”; running time: 110 minutes; rated R.

Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow” is one of the best films ever made about decapitations.

Still, those hoping to see Washington Irving’s classic tale, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” should take a cue from Burton’s abbreviated title: This film plucks from “Legend” what it wants, severs what it doesn’t, and rewrites a story that needed no changes at all.

For fans of the classic, it’s a bit disconcerting to sit through Burton’s version, especially since Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) is now a New York police constable and not a school teacher.

More startling is the diminished role of Brom Van Brunt (Casper Van Dien), whose presence is never given the importance Irving gave it in the original.

But then “Sleepy Hollow” has its own ideas and works on two entirely different planes — the visual and the narrative — neither of which forms a cohesive whole.

Burton and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have cranked up the fog machines and dimmed the moon to create a somber, richly atmospheric film that truly is beautiful to look at, but the film’s characters never connect with it. They’re too campy, too emotionally removed, too oddly inhuman. Some might argue that that’s Burton’s style, but in “Beetlejuice” and the first two Batman films, he was nevertheless able to use his characters to form an emotional bond with his audience, something he doesn’t do here.

Since Depp and Christina Ricci are at the core of this film, much of its success rests on them. But Ricci is utterly flat as Katrina Van Tassel and is clearly uncomfortable speaking the film’s late 18th century dialogue; she never once convinces us that she’s this character.

Unlike her hysterical, unguarded performance as Dee Dee Truitt in “The Opposite of Sex,” Ricci is so stiff here, she undermines whatever chemistry she could have had with Depp, whose highly mannered performance is sweetly naive and one of the film’s selling points.

If “Sleepy Hollow” fails with Ricci, it more than compensates with Miranda Richardson’s mincing performance as Lady Van Tassel and with the spectacular vision of the Headless Horseman himself. Here, Burton triumphs. With expertly choreographed scenes of action, this Horseman rides, spectacularly swinging his blade as he literally severs dozens of heads.

If that’s your thing, this film won’t disappoint. But if you were hoping for a bit more from Burton, a director whose work has the distinction of being instantly recognizable, “Sleepy Hollow” is so hollow, it echoes.

Grade: B-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”

THE VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

The End of the Affair B+ Felicia’s Journey B+ Sleepy Hollow B- The World is Not Enough B- American Beauty A Bringing Out the Dead B- The Straight Story A Anywhere but Here B+ Being John Malkovich C+ Dogma F Galaxy Quest B+ Fight Club B+ Flawless C- Music of the Heart B Tumbleweeds A The Bachelor D+ End of Days C+ The House on Haunted Hill F Mumford A- Stuart Little B- The Insider B+ Superstar B+ Three Kings A- Three to Tango D- Boys Don’t Cry A For Love of the Game B The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc C- The Phantom Menace B Jakob The Liar D Last Night B- The Sixth Sense A- The Omega Code F Pokemon: The First Movie C- Crazy in Alabama C Drive me Crazy C+ Guinevere A- The Limey A Outside Providence C+ Eyes Wide Shut B+ Buena Vista Social Club B+ The Bone Collector C+ Twin Falls Idaho A The Best Man B Random Hearts C- Stigmata C- Bats C Brokedown Palace C+ Double Jeopardy B- An Ideal Husband A-