Giving It Your Whole 84%:  How Great Movies Become Good Movies
 
A Review/Ponderance of Welcome to Collinwood by Michael Meyer
 
You know what bothers me a whole lot more than bad movies?  Movies that dance along the cusp of greatness so daintily that it sears you up inside that they’re not better.  Movies that make you think “this guy knows what he’s doing…but he’s NOT DOING IT!!!”  That’s the impression I got with Welcome to Collinwood, a remake of the 1958 classic Big Deal on Madonna Street, a movie that isn’t bad by any means, but comes so close to being great you want to tear your hair out.
 
I never saw the original but it seems like they saw Miracle in Milan and said “What if a few of the toothless, sleepy-eyed guys from the shantytown decided to knock off a jeweler” if it’s anything true to its remake.  On the surface, you have a bunch of kooky unsuited criminals who botch up every possible stage of a robbery you possibly can, whether intentionally or through fate spitting on them.  Pretty standard fare.  But this movie explores a little bit more.  The fact that they’re all at heart not really criminals, but just average people in horrible circumstances that decide to take a chance on something that can get them out of their rut.  The story really explores the humanity of these people not as honorable crooks but as real people.  It’s both funny and compelling.  One has a baby with a mother in jail, one’s a guy trying to maintain a look of affluence so he can marry his sister off to a rich man, one is a failed boxer who can’t box worth a damn, one an old bum…none of them criminals.  This TOO isn’t anything to shout about, but it’s the same kind of heartwarming, screwball venture that really really works if you have the chemistry and the talent behind it.    
 
And they DID!!!  You had an astounding cast for something like this, most specifically Sam Rockwell, who was born to do this movie; Michael Jeter, one of my favorite character actors on the planet Earth; and George Clooney because fuck the Hollywood leading man stuff, this guy was designed for comedy.  There’s no doubt he’s cool, but his cool is just some chemical agent that makes his comedy so much truer and more hilarious.  Luis Guzman can’t not be funny, it’s a mandate from God.  William H. Macy is one of the greatest actors of the past few decades and he’s always in top form even if the movie isn’t.  So what’s the problem?  All of this talent along with some really kicking Amelie meets Royal Tennenbaums art direction and fantastic music.  Also, from the extras on the DVD, you get the feeling that these kooky guys get along in an astounding way.  How can this not work?
 
It’s in the direction where this movie just reaches the cusp of A+ comedy picture and just lets it slide.  The speed of the picture was way too slow.  This is a screwball comedy, people.  The key is not to let the scene lag.  The movie was shot in such a straight fashion that it looked too real.  Normally I abide by the adage “the straighter you play it, the funnier it becomes” but not in this case.  I think these guys were afraid to get a little silly or they just sluffed off minor details and just that ounce of indifference prevented this movie from clobbering every other comedy in 2002.  It wouldn’t be that difficult either.  It was a light year.  
 
So, I guess I’m saying, in the world of movies, Welcome to Collinwood is good.  I’d recommend seeing it.  It does things that make it stand out as an original among the cookiecutter crop of mediocre Hollywood comedies.  But it was a failure to make that final step, that extra polish, that extra mile…no…foot that really would have made this a film to be reckoned with.

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