The Moguls - Review
Review by Jack Foley
IT’S very rare to find a bad Jeff Bridges film but The Moguls – about a small town’s attempts to get rich by making an amateur porn movie – has to represent one of the most misguided choices of his distinguished career.
Designed as a life-affirming comedy, the film ends up being a sexist, homophobic mess with a little bit of racism thrown in.
Bridges stars as Andy Sargentee, a perpetual under-achiever whose get-rich-quick schemes frequently land him in trouble.
Desperate to prove his worth to his teenage son – who is now living with a well-off stepfather – Andy finds inspiration in dirty movies and resolves to make his own smutty skin-flick with the help of his none-too-bright friends.
But what looks to be an easy prospect on paper quickly proves far more difficult in reality, particularly as finding the right women to participate is no easy task.
Joining Andy’s quest for success are the likes of Tim Blake Nelson’s love-struck refrigerator repairman, Ted Danson’s closet gay ‘womaniser’ and William Fichtner and Joe Pantoliano’s bumbling idiots (the latter is even called Some Idiot), while watching from the sidelines are Glenne Headley’s tart with a heart, who’s searching for love in all the wrong places and Lauren Graham’s single mother, who has the hots for Andy.
Given the quality of its cast and the intriguing premise, it would have been reasonable to expect a fairly amusing comedy.
But writer-director Michael Traeger’s film is so woefully crass that it’s most likely to offend rather than inspire anyone who sees it.
Evidence of the film’s desperation to find laughs comes from the number of ways in which its characters strive to think of ways to term genitalia or sexual positions.
While attempts to make its characters seem endearing by highlighting their social awkwardness merely grate.
What’s worse is the film’s consistent ability to turn off viewers with its racist, sexist and homophobic stereotypes.
Women, especially, get a rough deal, appearing as sex objects throughout (Headley’s character, for example, agrees to appear in the movie because she has already lost most of her dignity), while a trio of black men are cast and then ridiculed because their manhood doesn’t come up to scratch (as expected).
Danson, meanwhile, has to contend with a script that requires him to throw sexist comments around like confetti while apologising for the fact he is gay.
As for Bridges, the actor looks genuinely bored throughout, mumbling his lines (and voice-over) in yawn-inducing fashion.
By the time The Moguls reaches its obvious and banal conclusion, audiences should have become utterly sick of its contrivances.
For this is, in the final analysis, a comedy about making porn that ends up becoming a movie stiff.
Certificate: 15
Running time: 90mins