#26

One Night at McCools






Director: Harald Zwart

Cast: Matt Dillon ("Randy"), John Goodman ("Detective Dehling"), Paul Reiser ("Carl Harding"), Michael Douglas ("Mr Burmeister"), Liv Tyler ("Jewel Valentine")

Review: We meet a guy named Randy, who works at a bar, when he walks into a bingo place to meet a man named Burmeister. Randy sits down at his table and starts to tell him a story about a woman recently met and lived together with. He tells him the story of how they shot her ex and robbed several houses so that she can fix Randy's house.
Than we jump to another scenery. We're in a shrink's practice where another guy, Carl, tells the shrink the story of a woman he met. She is his cousin's girlfriend and he fell for her the first time he saw her. She made a move at him at a barbecue at his house and they ended up having bondage sex.
We jump yet to another place. Now we're at a church, where Det. Dehling tells his friend Father Jimmy about this woman he met during an investigation who looks just like his dead wife. He tells the Father that he filed a restraining order against the woman's husband because he was hitting her and that he found out that the husband killed a man.
They obviously talk about the same woman: Jewel. They're all in love with her but she only wants to find a house that she can make look like the house she's been dreaming about forever and so she sleeps with every man who has a house to get it.
But actually she sleeps with every guy that could do her a favour. And so she ends up sleeping with Randy and steals his house, his cousin and wants him to help her keep it, and with Det. Dehling to make sure that Randy is going to jail.
Everything seems to be working out, but Mr Burmeister is a killer and randy hires him to kill Jewel. At the same time, Carl and the detective both are at Jewel's house to surprise her. Carl is all b0ondaged up in her bedroom and the detective is preparing a romantic dinner when they see each other. Then Randy joins the grotesque scene asking them what they're doing. To top it all Utah's twin brother steps into the house to take revenge on his brother's death....

"One Night at McCool's" is a bitterly black comedy with a funny plot and solid actors. The idea of telling the story from various perspectives makes it both funny and a little bit grotesque. Everyone describes himself, of course, better than the others and has a slightly different view on everything, but they all love the same woman. It's like "There's something about Mary' with a way hotter female character and with another level of idiocy. Unfortunately there is nothing really new and surprising and the acting is no more than solid, except for Michael Douglas as a sex-possesed killer.
Normaly I'd give the movie a 7.1 - 7.3, but since Liv Tyler is even hotter as a redhead we are at a

7.6 out of 10 using-sex-as-a-weapon-sluts