‘Duets’ hits a sour note – karaoke style > Stallone can’t shake label in ‘Get Carter’; ‘Pitch Black’ follows successful sci-fi formula

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In Theaters

DUETS 113 minutes. Rated R; directed by Bruce Paltrow, written by John Byrum.

At first glance, it might seem curious that a film about music would warble so painfully through its multitude of themes, would be so tone deaf to its dozens of situations, and allow its characters to strike such a barrage of false notes. But when one considers the music in “Duets” is staked on the world of karaoke, well, it all seems downright fitting.

“Duets,” directed by Bruce Paltrow from a screenplay by John Byrum, follows six people traveling across the country in hopes of winning $5,000 at the national karaoke championships in Omaha, Neb. That’s right – Omaha. Along the way, they stop at small, dingy karaoke bars to hone their “talents,” drink boatloads of booze, swear, have sex, become stars for three minutes and, naturally, shoot for that evening’s jackpot.

All of this could have been great stuff – a film that examines a ripe slice of Americana – but Paltrow has loaded “Duets” with so many plots and subplots, his film has no shape, and worse, it completely lacks energy.

Without any sense of where to focus his camera or which stories are worth exploring in greater detail, Paltrow, who once had a career working on such television shows as “The White Shadow” and “St. Elsewhere,” loses control of his film almost immediately.

At its best, “Duets” offers a glimpse into a world teeming with troubled, lonely people finding solace at a microphone. At its worst, it’s a mishmash of lives colliding on and offstage, dramas unfolding and melodramas blooming, sentiment for the sake of sentiment. The editing, in particular, is the pits, so disjointed and awful, whatever flow the film could have had – and it’s doubtful it could have had much with so many stories spinning into the gloom at once – is swept out to the dark stage of despair.

With Huey Lewis as Ricky Dean, a karaoke hustler whose voice happily destroys the competition; Maria Bello as Suzi Loomis, a woman whose talents in the bedroom help get her across the country; and Paul Giamatti giving the film whatever life it has in the film’s most courageous performance, “Duets” truly goes to hell with Gwyneth Paltrow as Ricky’s daughter, Liv.

For some reason, Bruce Paltrow, Gwyneth’s father, has tried to pass her off as a troubled young woman who wears miniskirts and talks in a baby’s hush. None of it works. It’s just annoying. And, in the end, even though Gwyneth proves she has a modest set of pipes when she sings on stage with Lewis, I couldn’t have karaoked less about her character.

Grade: D

GET CARTER 102 minutes. Rated R; directed by Stephen Ky, written by David McKenna.

Stephen Kay’s remake of Mike Hodges’ seedy, noirish 1970 classic “Get Carter” may feature Sylvester Stallone in his first major film in three years, but don’t call it a comeback. Call it a dud.

“Get Carter”? Get real. The film is a conceptual nightmare, a train wreck of bad acting, bad directing and uneven production values that try their best to back the nearly nonexistent plot.

A Las Vegas mob enforcer (Stallone) convinced his brother’s car accident was no accident, goes on the hunt for those who did the killing.

Pepper that slim premise with Stallone wincing at the camera in his idea of emoting, or grunting “You don’t want to know me” to anyone who will listen, or, better yet, pair him opposite a real actor’s actor – Mickey Rourke – and you have an idea of how high the testosterone level is in this movie – and how low your expectations should be for any of it to work.

Three years ago, when Stallone appeared in James Mangold’s “Cop Land” opposite Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, it seemed as if the man who had become a star in the ring as Rocky and then gone on to become a staple in big-budget action films such as “Rambo” and “Daylight,” had decided to break away from the genre that had made him, and to try his hand at more serious work.

His commitment in “Cop Land” was clear – not only did he take a huge pay cut to appear in the film, but he also added 40 pounds of fat to his nearly 50-year-old frame.

It was a highly symbolic move – by getting rid of his famously chiseled body, Stallone was, in effect, neatly leaving behind the films that had buoyed his career for 20 years. But now we have “Get Carter” and with it, Stallone reverting back to type. None of this is as bad or as embarrassing as Stallone’s worst movie, “F.I.S.T.,” but it makes “Rhinestone” seem like the crown jewel in his career.

Grade: D-

On Video

PITCH BLACK 107 minutes. Rated R; directed by David Twohy, written by Twohy and Jim and Ken Wheat.

David Twohy’s thriller “Pitch Black” sees clearly through the dark, murky world of less successful sci-fi movies.

It’s a good student who has learned from the pitfalls of the genre – weak premise, messy plot and terrific special effects at the cost of thinly drawn characters – and uses that knowledge to create a world filled with believable characters, genuine suspense, and creepy moments of horror that grab and linger within the gathering darkness.

Nothing in this film is new – audiences have seen much of this before in other movies, particularly “Alien” and “Mad Max,” the latter of which obviously has inspired Twohy’s vision of a desolate future filled with lost souls. But Twohy (“The Arrival,” “Disaster in Time”) is nevertheless able to make it all seem fresh, and sometimes startlingly so.

His film opens with a spaceship falling from space and slamming spectacularly into an unknown planet with three suns (this sequence alone is worth the price of the rental). There, the ship’s nine survivors, including the female pilot, Fry (Radha Michell), lawman Johns (Cole Hauser) and the dangerous prisoner Riddick (Vin Diesel), learn they must take cover from the darkness of a rare solar eclipse – or else.

Indeed, as they learn early on in one particularly bloody scene, this planet holds a carnivorous secret – one that’s only let loose in the dark.

Shot in the same bleached tones as “Mad Max” and “Three Kings,” and punctuated throughout with Graeme Revell’s stirring tribal score, “Pitch Black” knows what “The Blair Witch Project” knew so well – real horror is best realized in the dark.

Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, and Tuesday and Thursday on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6.