Lots of trouble

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Lots of trouble
Original title Big Trouble
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2002
length 85 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Barry Sonnenfeld
script Robert Ramsey ,
Matthew Stone
production Tom Jacobson ,
Barry Josephson ,
Barry Sonnenfeld
music James Newton Howard
camera Greg Gardiner
cut Steven Weisberg
occupation

Big Trouble ( Big Trouble ) is an American comedy film of Barry Sonnenfeld in 2002. The script is based on the novel by Dave Barry .

action

Two Russians who seem to run the shabby pub called "Jolly Jackal" under the names John and Leo are arms dealers who want to sell a portable atomic bomb in Miami .

Arthur Herk, a petty criminal gun dealer and foot fetishist, also a big Xena fan and by and large a huge wimp, wants to get revenge on the company that has let him down. In addition, the rich businessman wants to buy the bomb from the two Russians.

Since Arthur Herk can have his employer, who is involved in some crimes, exposed and has also cheated on his bosses because he ran into his own pocket, the company hired the well-paid hitman Henry Desalvo to kill the employee. Henry Desalvo then makes his way to Miami with his helper Leonard Ferroni, who has been loyal to him for years, even though Desalvo is hated the city. He particularly hates the fans of the local Florida Gators football club . At dusk, Desalvo and Ferroni arrive at the garden wall that surrounds Herk's property.

A few minutes earlier, Matt and his best friend Andrew, who is always by his side, had already climbed over the garden wall. Matt, who was commissioned to shoot his classmate Jenny, Arthur Herk's daughter, with a water pistol in the game Killer , which is played in his school class, runs across the terrace of the house into the living room with a water pistol drawn when himself A shot from the gun of the assassin Desalvo is released and the television is destroyed. The mostly very disinterested and lethargic looking Jenny is thrown to the ground by Matt when Jenny's mother Anna Herk pounces on him. None of those involved is aware at this point that Matt has just unwittingly prevented an assassination attempt on Arthur Herk.

Arthur Herk immediately calls the police to have Matt arrested. Matt's father, Eliot Arnold, a now unsuccessful advertising designer and a former two-time Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist who was fired from his employer after his wife's divorce, arrives at the Herks house to take his son away. The summoned police officers Monica Romero and Walter Kramitz refuse to arrest Matt despite the urging of Arthur Herk, who is really only interested in his shot TV. Since Eliot Arnold bought a small car, it is by his son Matt as "Loser" (dt. Losers or failures referred), yet both do with this same car on the way home.

Puggy, a date in rainy north of the country in a cardboard box under a bridge of living dropouts and living artists , has arrived on that day in Miami and decided spontaneously in the tree house to live in Arthur Herks garden, from where he could watch the bizarre happenings . Now Puggy makes his way to the pub "Jolly Jackal", which is run by the two Russians. There he meets two petty criminals, Snake Dupree and Eddie Leadbetter. The two have known each other from prison and get on well because they share the same kind of humor. Snake and Eddie live hand-to-mouth, constantly trying to cheat the Russians in their pub. Eddie Leadbetter is for sure the biggest idiot walking around in Miami. He follows Snake without being asked and supports him in his plans.

Arthur Herk also visits the pub to get the bomb from the two Russian arms dealers. But Snake and Eddie get the bomb, which is kept in a metal suitcase, because they assume it is a safe with a time lock . As if that weren't enough, they take Arthur Herk hostage, put Puggy, who has to carry the bomb, into the trunk of Herk's sports car and break into the Herk's house to kill the "Obermotz", as they call Herk, to unbutton some valuables. A hostage situation occurs in Herk's house, in which Arthur, Matt, Eliot, Anna and the newly summoned police officers are tied up with telephone cables. When Snake and Eddie finally make their way to the airport to leave the country, they take Puggy and Jenny Herk with them. Meanwhile, Desalvo and his partner are waiting in the garden to finish their job after the first failed attempt.

The criminals, described as "an idiot and an even bigger idiot", flee towards the airport and want to fly to the Bahamas with their hostages . At the airport control, the equally smart employee asks you to switch on the device in the box you brought with you, and with that you activate the countdown of the bomb. After the small airliner took off with passengers and a bomb, the FBI people initiate the launch of two interceptors, which are immediately behind the aircraft, ready to fire. In an on-flight showdown, Eliot Arnold incapacitates the criminals. He throws the bomb, whose detonator countdown has only a few seconds left, from the plane, while Snake clings to the metal case and plunges into the ocean. Shortly afterwards, a violent eruption hit the water surface.

Eliot Arnold succeeds in regaining the reputation of his son through the spectacular liberation of Jenny and removal of the bomb. Anna Herk, who married Arthur some time ago so that she would no longer have to live in a poor dump with her daughter, admits to herself that she is unhappy with her marriage and has wanted to divorce for a long time. Arthur is now completely indifferent to her, but Eliot arouses her interest, so that the two finally get closer.

Differences from the novel

The film has quite a few differences from the novel.

The “particularly difficult customer” in the film is identical to “Lawyer A” and a traffic hooligan who appears later, but that is not mentioned in the novel.

In the novel, Puggy comes to Miami because of the good weather, but in the film because of the Cuban cuisine, which is very good in Miami, as he read in Martha Stewart Living magazine . In the novel he earns money on the first day of his stay in Miami with unknowingly committed election fraud, in the film he immediately goes to the pub called "Jolly Jackal". There Puggy meets John and Leo, who in the novel initially speak with a Latino accent and only later with a Russian accent, in the film they can be recognized as Russian by their accent from the start. Arthur Herk receives a bomb from the two Russians, which he needs in the novel to make himself heard by the police, to whom he wants to confess the illegal machinations of his company in order to receive police protection. In the film he wants to blow up his company because his own board of directors has abandoned him as a pawn and even set a killer on him. In the novel, Snake and Eddie take this bomb, which is in a metal suitcase, from the pub "Jolly Jackal" because they think there are drugs in it, while in the film they assume the bomb is a safe with a time lock, in which there are valuables. Since Snake and Eddie suspect that they could get hold of other valuables from Arthur Herk's property, they drive to his house, where they are surprised by the police and in the novel Arthur Herk and Officer Kramitz are chained to a brass shelf, while in the film Officer Ramiro is chained occupies this place. Later in the film, Officer Ramiro is chained from the shelf by the FBI agents, while Officer Kramitz is not helped in the novel.

The man who shoots Matt, Andrew and Jenny at "Coconut Grove" is a security guard on duty at the shopping center in the film, but has already been laid off in the novel and is unemployed. The Miami Police Chief does not appear in the film.

In the novel, Eddie and Snake are overwhelmed by Officer Ramiro and Matt on the plane; in the film, Matt's father manages this alone. Subsequently, the FBI agents and the New York hit men Leonard Ferroni and Henry Desalvo, who don't know each other in the film, but are old acquaintances in the novel, run into each other. In the novel, Henry is almost strangled at the airport by an escaped giant snake named Daphne, who does not appear in the film. The end of the novel, in which the further fates of those involved are clarified, is omitted in the film.

background

A lot of Trouble was filmed in Miami , which is also where the plot of the film is set. The scenes that take place in the Miami Herald's office building were actually created in this building. Filming at the Miami Herald exceeded the agreed duration, but could be continued and ended after the intervention of Dave Barry , who worked for the newspaper. Production of the film began on 31 July 2000 and ended in October 2000. The budget of the film is approximately 40 million US dollars estimated. Barry Sonnenfeld completed production at a cost that was one million US dollars below the agreed budget.

Due to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 , the film was released in the US on April 2, 2002, six months later than originally planned. After the attacks on the World Trade Center , the audience did not receive the film positively, as expected, because, among other things, frivolous violations of flight security during baggage and personal control at the security gates of an airport are shown, which is why in the USA only 7, It grossed $ 2 million at the box office, including over $ 3.5 million on the opening weekend. Although the theatrical release was scheduled for June 13, 2002, the film was not shown in German cinemas due to its poor commercial performance in the USA, but was released on September 25, 2003 as a direct-to-video production directly on DVD . Globally, the film's box office revenue was approximately $ 8.5 million.

Barry Sonnenfeld suggested jokingly, the line " It's built by Ford now " (dt. "It is now built by Ford" ), the Patrick Warburton in respect of a Jaguar expresses, is cursed, as they in the movie The Crew can be heard who, like Lots of Trouble, failed to achieve commercial box office success.

Katie Holmes was originally slated for the role of Jenny Herk , but she is played by Zooey Deschanel in the film . The character Eliot Arnold played by Tim Allen is based largely on the character traits of Dave Barry . Johnny Knoxville's character, Eddie Leadbetter , was named after the blues musician Huddie Ledbetter , who was known by the name Leadbelly and who was often in conflict with the law. The co-pilot of the fly-by-air machine, played by Flip Schultz , is called Jan Vigusion , as Barry Sonnenfeld has a character named Vigusion in each of his films .

In the hallucinations the Arthur Herk suffers, that of Stanley Tucci is played, are Martha Stewart and Elizabeth Dole in a cameo to see after Puggy in the first minutes of the film in the magazine Martha Stewart Living reads. In another cameo, Barry Sonnenfeld's daughter Chloe is seen riding a scooter while Puggy and Anna run through the airport terminal towards the end of the film. Dave Barry can be heard in the original English language together with David Koepp in a cameo in which they are discussing as a fan of the Florida Gators and a radio host of a call-in sports show on Henry Desalvo's car radio .

The song that plays in the Hummer driven by FBI agent Pat Greer is called - like the original title of the film - Big Trouble and was sung by actor Dwight Myers himself, the front man of the band Heavy D. & the Boyz .

criticism

James Berardinelli wrote on movie-reviews.colossus.net that the film had a prominent cast like the films by Robert Altman . Tim Allen’s portrayal would fit his role “perfectly”.

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on April 5, 2002 that the film did not come close to the class of the Barry Sonnenfeld film Snaps Shorty , but had its own charm.

Carsten Baumgardt von Filmstarts judged the film to be a "little crook comedy with an exquisite cast". He praised the "many quirky, eccentric characters" he compared to Snatch - pigs and diamonds . Baumgardt is of the opinion that “something new” cannot be “won by Sonnenfeld from the genre […]”, but the film is “entertaining and funny” and is entertaining. "90 minutes of casual entertainment with a constant smile factor [...] are guaranteed".

The lexicon of international films summed up that the film was "an action-comedy by Barry Sonnenfeld with a brilliant cast on paper, which, after a furious beginning, falls far short of its potential." With this, a lot of trouble is "a film that is as unpleasant as it is dumb" .

The editorial team of TV Spielfilm judged that a lot of trouble was "crime fun with great ideas". The film has been compared to Robert Altman's film Short Cuts as a "lousy hermaphrodite" . The plot makes no sense, but it's fun, because the film is full of "chaos, comedy and lots of stupid sayings".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Locations according to the Internet Movie Database
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Background information  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. according to the Internet Movie Database@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.imdb.de  
  3. ↑ a b c Budget and box office results according to the Internet Movie Database
  4. ↑ Start dates according to the Internet Movie Database
  5. ↑ a b c d film review , film starts , Carsten Baumgardt
  6. ↑ Box Office
  7. ^ Film review , James Berardinelli
  8. ^ Film Review , Chicago Sun-Times , Roger Ebert , April 5, 2002
  9. ↑ Lots of trouble. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  10. ↑ Film review , TV feature film

Web links