Four Play (2001)

To compare this to Notting Hill, as they do on the DVD cover, is the only thing funny about this film. No romance, no comedy, bad music... Can't find anything negative to say about the plot, though, because basically there is none.Writing 10 lines about this "film" is absolutely impossible – stupid rule,by the way: why force reviewers to be long-winded?. So here go the first five lines again...To compare this to Notting Hill, as they do on the DVD cover, is the only thing funny about this film. No romance, no comedy, bad music... Can't find anything negative to say about the plot, though, because basically there is none.

I never really understood these kinds of films. What we have here are a group of people attracted to one another, and going through the throws of success, sex and life in some kind of hapless social foray. One that really doesn't produce any kind of result. No happy endings here, and for all of the attempt at humor, there isn't too much that's funny here. In this sense it's sort of an old fashioned comedy; i.e. stuff that's not really funny to begin with, but is presented with a kind of humorous attitude. Beyond that, there isn't too much to be made of this film. Mariel Hemingway is gorgeous as ever, and Colin Firth attempts to save a struggling film with superior thesping. The others hold their own in the acting department. Camera angles are fairly plain. There's nothing really inspiring about this film. It promised to be a sex comedy, but doesn't do much for either promise.Watch at your own risk.

There's not much to it except for beautiful people (MarielHemingway) and a few funny situations. Not so funny is arepetitive theme of unprovoked violence, which was passed off asslapstick but proved more painful than funny.The one scene was the couple in the marriage counsellor's office,only the counsellor was a personnel counsellor and a haplesschap that was clearly over his head, especially when the lovely ladystraight-facedly asked the counsellor to ask her husband, whydoes he not like to kiss me between my legs like he used to. Aftera go-around like that, she asked the counsellor to ask herhusband why he doesn't want her to make love with him with hermouth anymore. "Ask him all the places where I do it." The park,the Metro... "THE METRO?"That's the funniest part about a half hour before the end. It's alldownhill after that.

It needs tightening up to pick up the pace. It had the potential of an outrageous comedy. The acting was uniformly good. The makeup of the cast was good and helped by the use of familiar faces. The sequel should have the audience rolling in the aisles.