Review of The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) by Callum R — 26 Jan 2009

The Coen's fifth film was their most accessible and one of their most successful mainstream declarence. Mixing the styles of the art deco 30's and the fast and the furious attitudes of the 50's this reworks the man against the system charade with domineering effect at the beginning. Sadly the momentum crashes at the one hour mark leaving Tim Robbins with a highly stylised PG sentimentality that neither provokes feeling from the audience as changing tracks mid way makes this tribute from the Coen's a very mixed back indeed.Tim Robbins plays the pawn in Paul Newman?s business enterprise when the head of Hudsucker industry comically ends his life. The light hearted nature of the script invokes clear story boundary conventions. The beginning chronicles the rise, the middle dictates Robbins character change (showing the exploitative powers of being a ruler) and the end reveals his fortunes and redemption. This is clearly no Shawshank and neither does it try to be, but you cannot help feeling that the shared writing of Evil Dead cult legend Sam Raimi and both Coen bros (who incidentally started movies from their work on the original Evil Dead) create a messy script pulling into too many directions. Despite some high class wit and intelligence to begin with, the sentimental weak narration illustrates poor writing during the second half, something which the Coens would breech again with their awful Ladykillers remake. As always likable characters are a plenty and are well written despite some cliché character developments. Out of the lot its Jennifer Jason Leigh's character who gets the best show and lines, though Paul Newmans Sidney character is a pure joy to hear. Superb acting all round with quick fire witty and dramatic performances courtesy of a dry humour laced Bruce Campbell and the deliriously intelligent yet schemingly aspiring Jennifer Jason Leigh, whose secret heart of gold is slightly endearing. The performances sound out those of the witty Cary Grant films of the 30's. However, while the dialogue delivery is great the Huduscker premise runs out of steam at the hour mark leaving some underused characters flailing about in the background. This is one of the Coens most highly stylised features, second only to the mind doping of The Big Lebowski (full review coming after this). The spinning newspapers and the fast camera movements develop a heart beating pace and life, if only for the first half, that is both entertaining and well contained and used. The style is fluent, matching the witty dialogue. Unfortunately it all slows down towards the end, thouh the air suspension scene with Robbins and an angelic Charles Durning is brilliant. Though the premise has been better created elsewhere, as a modern spin Hudsucker Proxy does for the most part work in providing some chuckles. With the originality that only the Coens bring to the board in all their films, it succeeds in this department for trying something new, but receives only half marks as a whole due to the second halves clichés. A surprisingly vast epic score that is both familiar and memorable. It matches both the era of film making the Coens are aspiring to recreate and ties in the characters and setting together. Overall the strong cast, dialogue and style cannot hide the fact that the joint-written script is dead as a dodo after 50 minutes. Still its enjoyable light relief that is comically strong at delivering some laughs from the harshest of critics.

Rated (PG).

Total Running Time: 100 Minutes.

Final Score: 65/100.