Review of Mr. Deeds (2002) by Lewis C — 05 Mar 2010

When millionaire Preston Blake expires while climbing Mount Everest, Blake Media, the news company he built up, is in danger of extinction. Blakes second-in-command Chuck Cedar wants to sell off the company, becoming richer (but putting the companys 50000 employees out of work). However, news comes of Blakes surviving relative, a nephew called Longfellow Deeds, so Cedar decides to track down Deeds and convince him to give up the company.

Deeds, it is discovered, works in his friend Jans pizzeria in New Hampshire and is in fact a small-town bumpkin, with little knowledge of the world but possessing a kind-hearted easygoing nature. Taking advantage of this good nature, Cedar convinces Deeds to sell his shares in Blake Media to Cedar for $40 billion, but to work out all the legal details Deeds must come to New York for some days. Deeds arrives, and immediately causes waves: he makes friends with the staff, particularly the butler Lopez; he punches out a talented but profane football athlete; and he accidentally breaks apart the frozen body of his uncle Preston at the funeral.

Deeds antics attract publicity, and a shrewd reporter named Babe Bennett decides to get closer to Deeds. She pretends to be mugged by her partner Marty, in sight of Deeds. Deeds punches out Marty and saves Babe (who introduces herself to him as Pam Dawson, a nurse from Iowa), and thus they begin dating. At first she gets great stories of Deeds beating up a bunch of snobby socialites, and rescuing a tenant from a burning building. And meanwhile, she has to frantically improvise when Deeds takes her on a surprise date to Dawsons home town of Winchestertonfeldville (which she made up and supposedly didnt exist).