Review of Saving Silverman (2001) by Leonard D — 06 Feb 2015

Directed by Dennis Dugan (Problem Child (1990), I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) and You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008)). This mean-spirited black comedy should have been funny, and it's plot could have been a winner in the right hands.

But something has got lost in translation from script to screen, and it ends up being filled with anger and hatred, and it's a lot more spiteful than funny. It's main focus is on three best friends, Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs), Wayne LeFessier (Steve Zahn), and J.

D. McNugent (Jack Black), who have been friends since childhood and have never let anything get in the way of their friendship. However, when Darren meets psychologist Judith Fessbeggler (Amanda Peet), Wayne and J.

D. are at first happy that their friend has found love, but once they find that Judith is overbearing and domineering, and that she's forbidden Darren from seeing Wayne or J.D. again, desperate times call for desperate measures.

So Wayne and J.D. plan to kidnap Judith, and fake her own death. However, it backfires. You do get the impression that Hollywood simply doesn't get how to get the tone of a black comedy right, American black comedies either end up too tame or way too nasty, this falls into the latter catergory.

However, Zahn and Black make a good double act, and it should have been more about them.