Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
A few years ago I was on a bus from Paris to Frankfurt, following a whirlwind 36-hour tour of the City of Lights. Gazing out the window at the French countryside should have been entertainment enough for our tour group, but no: we had an in-ride movie. It was an action movie called Double Team, and it starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman and Mickey Rourke. Appropriate, no? Van Damme is almost French after all, and they still loved Rourke in France for many years before his recent comeback.
Anyway, I don’t remember much about Double Team, but Wikipedia reminds me that Dennis Rodman played “a flamboyant arms dealer.” One thing I don’t recall thinking is that Rodman would have a long and successful film career. In fact, I very specifically remember not thinking that, and I think history has proved me right. The ex-basketball star’s sleepy-eyed brand of charisma may be an asset to the likes of Celebrity Apprentice, but his acting chops only served to make Van Damme look Brandoesque by comparison.
Nonetheless, Rodman did get a second chance at becoming the next Van Damme with Simon Sez, which I would charitably describe as an action comedy. Rodman plays the titular Simon, an ex-CIA operative now working for Interpol in France. (Apparently the European agency has a more lax dress code, allowing their agents to sport platinum blonde hair and multiple facial piercings and tattoos. I would think such an appearance might be a drawback on undercover missions, but I never went to spy school.) For reasons that eluded me, Simon is assisted by two monks, a wisecracking fat guy and a wisecracking black dude; they’re like the worst Abbot and Costello tribute show on earth.
That makes them a good match for the sorriest Jim Carrey substitute a SAG minimum salary could buy in 1999, Dane Cook. As Nick Miranda, Simon’s old classmate from Langley, Cook has clearly been given free reign to unleash his comic genius at will. He makes Wookie noises and Jurassic Park noises! He snaps off the one-liners in the midst of a high-speed car chase. (“These guys are like my college loan officers – they just keep comin’!” “Maybe he just wants some Grey Poupon!”) There is a satisfying moment when he falls off a fire escape into a garbage can and rolls down an alley, but it’s not enough to make up for his gruesome mistaken faith in his own talent and likeability.
Anyway, the plot has something to do with Rodman and Cook teaming up to rescue a rich man’s kidnapped daughter who is being held ransom for the disk full of CIA secrets Brad Pitt thought he’d found in Burn After Reading. Rodman’s vortex of bad acting takes over the rest of the cast, none of whom can make the typed-by-chimpanzee dialogue sound like words actual humans would say. The action sequences offer an array of gaffes and utter disregard for the laws of physics (I think I saw Rodman stopping for a sandwich as he fell from a 30-story window), but there is a quicksand sequence, which always cheers me up. (Unfortunately, Rodman rescues Cook before he completely disappears beneath the surface.)
The good news is that Simon Sez was rewarded with one of the worst opening weekends in history, debuting on 504 screens and taking in a miserable $185,472 total. The movie got what it deserved, and I don’t need to pile on any further. I will mention something you may have noticed: this is Unwatchable #51, which means we’ve made it halfway through the list and have 50 more to go. They bet against me! They said I’d never make it past #78! But I proved ‘em wrong! Tune in next week for a special first-half celebration of…Unwatchable!
Previously on Unwatchable:
52. In the Mix
53. Baby Geniuses
54. Meatballs 4
55. A*P*E
56. Araf
