A
film review by Hal Hinson, Washington Post, May 19, 1995.
 Forget Paris, the shamelessly schmaltzy new film from writer-producer-director-star Billy Crystal, is a by-the-numbers '90s romantic comedy straight from the boilerplate. With its wall-to-wall soundtrack of classic jazz ballads, its geographic reference points, its flimsy musical-comedy plot with the undercurrent of fatigue, longing and worldliness about men and women, it's the last word in Hollywood's soft-sell summer model. At this point, all these yuppie date movies are starting to blur together into one big wet epic - While You Were Sleeping in Seattle, Harry Met Sally, French-Kissed and Forgot Paris.
The picture - which opens in a Manhattan bar where Andy (Joe Mantegna) has assembled his closest
buds to meet his fiancée (Cynthia
Stevenson) - is presented as one of those great stories told among old
friends. In this case, the heroes are Mickey and Ellen (Crystal and Debra Winger), and the story is about
their meeting.
Some years back, Mickey's father died. His last request was to be
buried in France alongside his buddies who died during World War II. Though he
and his father didn't have much of a relationship, Mickey decides to honor his
request and takes a leave from his job as a National Basketball Association
referee. But on the flight over, the airline loses the coffin.
After several days' delay, Ellen enters as the airline's customer
relations representative to save the day. After some obligatory banter, Ellen
becomes Mickey's guide through a greatest-hits collection of Parisian stuff.
Almost instantly, Ellen and the little referee are madly in love, strolling arm and arm through the
streets, nuzzling one another in cafes and, in general, having the most
divinely romantic time of their lives.
The problem, of course, is that their time together in Paris was
so special, so magical, so dazzling that their life after she follows him back
to America seems dim by comparison. Their friends say, Forget Paris - meaning, live in the real world with the rest of us.
But, then, Ellen and Mickey don't live in the real world; they live in a '90s
romantic comedy.
On most of the big points - such as romantic chemistry between
Crystal and Winger, direction and the jokes - the film deserves no better than
a pass. Though the pictures give lip service to serious issues, whenever the
material comes close to an actual human moment - as opposed to some confected
revelation or bogus Hollywood moment - Crystal backs down, preferring to dodge
the issue with cute quips.
The scenes dealing with Mickey's life as a referee are easily the
picture's best - especially those moments when Crystal is actually on the court
with the players. Crystal has said that he wanted these sequences to function
as a sort of mini-documentary about refereeing, and if it falls short of that
mark, it does so by inches. But then what documentary could give you the
pleasure of seeing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's slouchy delivery in his brief cameo - Mickey
ejects him from his farewell game in Detroit - or the sublime delight of seeing
ex-Piston Bill Laimbeer get T'ed-up
again, just for old time's sake?
Crystal is actually at his best in these scenes too. Free of the
pressure to be a leading man and seduce every member of the audience, seat by
seat, row by row, his face relaxes, the camera finds its proper place and the
movie falls into a nice rhythm. However, in his scenes with Winger - who looks
smashing and slightly bemused - the camera always seems to zoom in too close
and too often. Crystal's always selling, always pitching, and always dying for
us to find him adorable. If he'd relax, we might have room to, but he crowds us
out, doing our reacting for us.
Ultimately, it's the same old story - the clown wants to win the
girl. But Crystal passes for a romantic the way Bob Hope did, which is not very
well. As an actor and a director, Crystal is so eager to please that, if he
were the host at a party, he'd meet his guests at the car with their drinks.
And if desperation looks bad on a comic, it looks even worse on a leading man.
Labels:
comedy, Paris, romance, sport
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