HOLLYWOOD - Welcome to the dog days of summer.Last weekend's release of American Pie 2 represented the summer's last sure thing.
Hollywood traditionally treats mid- to late August as a dumping ground, littering theaters with garbage in the hopes of making a quick buck before and during the Labor Day weekend. Think Chill Factor. The Crow: City of Angels. Knock Off. Highlander: Endgame. Get the picture?
This trash mentality no doubt explains the arrival of two of this weekend's new films: American Outlaws and Rat Race.
A Western that enthusiastically mythologizes the exploits of bank robber Jesse James, American Outlaws stars the hottest actor you've never heard of: Colin Farrell.
The Irish unknown won raves last year for his performance as a hardened solider in the gritty Tigerland. So what if distributor 20th Century Fox ignored the goodwill that the Joel Schumacher-directed Vietnam saga generated among critics and released it in only a handful of theaters? Hollywood took notice of Farrell.
Farrell suddenly became the actor to turn to when a studio's A-list choice dropped out of a hot project. He replaced Matt Damon in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, Jim Carrey in Phone Booth and Edward Norton in Hart's War.
American Outlaws will provide American audiences with their first opportunity to acquaint themselves with Hollywood's hottest overnight sensation since Matthew McConaughey. Unfortunately, American Outlaws offers Farrell little to do except smile. And smile. Directed by Les Mayfield, American Outlaws plays like a third Young Guns. There are moments when you're waiting for Jon Bon Jovi to arrive and burst into "Wanted: Dead or Alive."
In recent years, Westerns have failed to make much of a bang at the box office. Even Wild Wild West, with its $113.8 million gross, was considered a major flop for Will Smith. If anything, with its unknown but rugged cast, American Outlaws should make more than Bad Girls' 15.1 million total but will probably fall short of the Brat Pack-driven Young Guns II's $40.1 million total.
Back in the late 1980s, famed producer Dino De Laurentiis tried in vain to create a Reagan-era It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Such was the disinterest in Million Dollar Mystery--headlined by, of all people, Eddie Deezen--ended up earning about the same amount of money that its greedy characters tried to get their grubby hands on.
Rat Race should fare better than Million Dollar Mystery, which ultimately contributed to the demise of De Laurentiis' mini-studio. For starters, Rat Race implicates Cuba Gooding Jr., John Cleese, Jon Lovitz, Rowan Atkinson and Whoopi Goldberg in a race to win $2 million stuffed in a locker in New Mexico. It also was directed by Jerry Zucker, who co-created the classic Airplane! before enjoying solo success with Ghost.
Still, the idea of a cross-country jaunt filled with supposedly hysterical repercussions seems creaky at best, especially given that Mad World director Stanley Kramer already mined a similar star-studded road trip for all it was worth. Also, theaters were only 60 percent filled for Rat Race previews held Saturday.
While the fate of American Outlaws and Rat Race seem dubious, Captain Corelli's Mandolin looks poised to capture many hearts this weekend.
That Universal delayed the World War II romance from spring to mid-summer seems fortuitous given the media hoopla surrounding Tom Cruise's new girlfriend, Penelope Cruz. Cruz is far from a box office certainty--Woman on Top made $5 million, All the Pretty Horses made $15.5 million--but the intense focus on her love life should ignite interest in the summer's second high-minded romance to employ war as its backdrop. Nicolas Cage--about to go to war for a second time in John Woo's upcoming Windtalkers--also should sell some tickets.