Review of A Life Less Ordinary (1997) by Aaron N — 14 Mar 2008

O'Reilly: Our fee for the recovery of your daughter is... one hundred thousand dollars.

Naville: That's a lot of money.

O'Reilly: Five thousand in advance. The rest is cash on delivery - no daughter, no dough.

Jackson: And naturally we'd operate a sliding scale, whereby if we only bring back part of your daughter, we only get part of the money.

O'Reilly: That's enough, Jackson.

Jackson: No, I mean if he's cut her ears off and we can't find them, we'll knock a couple thousand off the tariff. More for a limb, obviously.

O'Reilly: Jackson.

Jackson: Sorry.

Usually put in the lower half of director Danny Boyle's filmography, I have always enjoyed watching this film. It's a strange, dark romantic comedy that involves kidnapping and angels sent to ensure the love between two people.

It also features an impressive cast, a very good alternative soundtrack (something not unfamiliar to a Boyle film), and plenty of style to make this film very interesting visually.

Robert: They're replacing us with fucking robots!

Ewan McGregor stars as a slacker, rocking a very strange hair cut, working as a janitor, until he is fired and his girlfriend dumps him.

Cameron Diaz is a spoiled rich girl, who is at her father's (Ian Holm) wits end.

McGregor eventually storms into his former boss' office and kidnaps Diaz.

This is not too much of a coincidence, because two angels (Delroy Lindo and Holly Hunter) have been sent by their boss (Dan Hedeya) to bring these two together.

The majority of the movie revolves around McGregor and Diaz bickering and hanging together, while the angels pursue them using strange means to bring them together.

This was Boyle's attempt at making a mainstream film despite the strange setup, and so of course many did not like it when it first arrived, but for some reason I have found this to be an enjoyable film due to its oddities.

The soundtrack in particular, I enjoy, largely due to it having my favorite Beck song.

Along with the romance stuff, this film plays with balancing cliches against elements of a trash novel, something MgGregor's character is actually trying to write, and brings it up again and again.

This is an enjoyable film for me, but its not for everyone.

Jackson: What the hell did you do to her?

Robert: I punched her in the face.

Jackson: Oh, you punched her in the face. She's half your size and you punch her in the face?

Robert: She had a gun!

Jackson: Oh, she had a gun! So that makes everything all right, does it?

Robert: No, I'm not saying it makes everything all right. I'm just trying to explain to you that for all I knew, she could have been a karate expert or something.

Jackson: With a broken arm? WITH A BROKEN ARM?

Robert: O.K., I'm sorry.