Review of Jury Duty (1995) by Tim W — 10 Jan 2005

Here's what I wonder: if a movie is originally in a foreign language, and you watch it dubbed into your language, can you hold it against the movie if the dialogue is flat? I watched "City of God" the other day, and I really liked it, but two or three times I remember wishing that the dialogue was less utilitarian. I realize that teenage thugs shouldn't talk like poets, but a nice turn of phrase never hurt a Scorsese movie, which seems like what this movie would most like to be. (I definately don't mean that in a bad way - the movie's original, but it's original in a way that a Scorsese movie would be).

So anyway, then I remembered reading somewhere (probably the Ebert site, which I read a lot, because I'm a huge loser) that the dialogue was supercool in the original Portugese. But I don't speak Portugese, so I'm in a quandry. I guess what it comes down to is that I liked the movie, so I don't want to hold the dialogue against it, so I won't. If I didn't like the movie, I suppose I would. And either way it doesn't matter. Aren't you glad you read this?

Here's a little sidenote:

On the RT page for this movie, one of the only negative blurbs is from Jan Stuart of Newsday and she says: "Finally, the movie is more numbing than emotionally shattering." I read her review, and in context this sentence makes sense, but wouldn't it be funny if there was a reviewer out there who only liked movies she felt were "emotionally shattering"?

"True, 'Caddyshack' was funny, as when Bill Murray blew up the golf course while trying to kill that varmint, but through it all my emotions remained entirely unshattered.".

"Emotion shattering-wise, Pauly Shore's performance in 'Jury Duty' didn't even register a cracking or chipping.".

"Sometimes I wasn't sure 'Dice Rules' was even trying to shatter my emotions.".