Film

One Night at McCool's (2001)

Director: Harald Zwart

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Randy (Dillon) is minding the bar and his own business, when in comes Jewel (Tyler), the sort of vamp he could only dream about. She's so fast he barely has time to think - so when the post-coital conversation turns into a murder inquiry, Randy finds himself taking the rap for shooting Jewel's ex in self-defence. Well, that's his perspective. Police detective Dehling (Goodman) sees only an abused, sensitive young woman terrified to speak in front of a self-confessed killer, a woman who reminds him uncannily of his late, lamented wife, God rest her soul. Then there's Carl (Reiser), Randy's cousin, a lawyer so in love with himself he can only assume Jewel loves him too. No wonder hired hitman Burmeister (Douglas) has such trouble making head or tail of it. 'A Harald Zwart Film', no less, this imagines itself much smarter, sexier and funnier than it really is. Its gimmick is an overlapping story structure courtesy of three male narrators, but it's a tiresome and pointless conceit, given that these guys only ever have one thing on their mind. At least the film's sexism cuts both ways. As the object of all this desire, poor Liv Tyler is forced to dress like a tart, speak in a breathless Marilyn lisp, and care about nothing but sex and home furnishings - not necessarily in that order.

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