HOME FRIES
Dean Martin has never sounded better! Dead or alive! His rendition of the old ditty, Memories are Made of This, at the beginning of "Home Fries" is the best thing in the movie. This doesn’t say too much for the rest of the picture.
First we meet a youthful, very pregnant Sally(Drew Barrymore). The father drives up to the pick-up window at a Burger-Matic to talk, apologize, and maybe get laid. He’s an old fart. She’s a good soul. He’s married. She’s had enough. Seconds later, the schlemiel is driving down a dark country road with an Army Attack chopper after him. He crashes, escapes, and dies of a heart attack. Next come the two step sons, Dorian(Luke Wilson) and Angus(Jake Busey). They are Air National Guard chopper pilots. They want to please their ‘serial mom’ by finding out who the old man was schtupping. Mom wants her killed too!
Why am I giving so much away? This all happens in the first ten minutes of the movie. This is the set up so Dorian can meet and fall in love with Sally.
Luke and Drew are the next best things in "Home Fires." Luke gives Dorian an understated charm that matches Sally’s polite bluntness , yin for yang. The Lamaze class and Dorian’s confusion over his relationship to Sally’s baby are the highlights. Altogether, they have about twenty wonderful minutes together. Unfortunately, twenty minutes worth of wonderful is not enough to sustain the rest of the film. It is painful to sit through. It’s full of ‘dumb and dumber’ shenanigans and some drivel about sibling rivalry. Somewhere in this mess are the seeds for a quirky romantic comedy. Too bad they weren’t allowed to take root.
Greg Murray