“White Irish Drinkers” (2011)
Written and Directed by: John Gray
Starring: Nick Thurston, Geoffrey Wigdor, Stephen Lang, Peter Riegert,
Karen Allen and Jackie Martling
Photographed by: Seamus Tierney
Running Time: 109 min.

Rating: 0

David Lynch’s “Inland Empire” never received a theatrical release in San Diego, and only one of Jean-Luc Godard’s past seven features has screened in America‘s Finest City. So how is it possible that the rank, amateurish “White Irish Drinkers” will defile the sacred arc light of the Ken Cinema starting April 22?

Welcome to Bland Diego.
It’s the same old story: Thick-headed and explosive Danny (Geoff Wigdor) wants to pave a career of crime for his doe-eyed younger brother Brian (Nick Thurston). But Brian has a sentimental side; he can’t as much as bring himself to pocket an engraved cross dangling from a pawn shop shelf. And he’d rather paint watercolors in the basement of a neighboring bagel shop than dabble in criminal activity. When the Rolling Stones play a one-night gig at Brooklyn’s Lafayette Theatre and Danny devises a way to abscond with the $30,000 take, Brian must choose between an honest, all-American work ethic or crime family loyalty.

There’s a girl in the picture, Shauna (Leslie Murphy), a fickle, free-spirited bar rag who frolics naked through a cemetery with the smitten Brian, who later captures the Hallmark moment in watercolor and deposits the canvas on her doorstep. At least writer, director John Gray avoids the hackneyed son-meets-best-girl-and-brings-her-home-to-meet-repugnant, hard- drinking-father- (Stephen Lang) and-beaten-down-mother (Karen Allen) scene. But that’s the only cliché he manages to sidestep.

TV biopic bon vivant director John Gray (“The Marla Hanson Story,” “Martin and Lewis,” the remakes of “Brian‘s Song” and “Helter Skelter”) appears to have spent far too much time documenting real life human decay on the small screen. In this case, the pictures are larger and the emotions more intense, but the stench of television, particularly Gray’s handling of his cast, permeates the multiplex. Thurston towers over Wigdor’s musty Vinnie Barbarino swagger and holds his own with the more seasoned cast members, but scenes between Brian and his friends reveal nothing more than a bush-league director rushing his equally helpless cast through their lines. As much as I admire the talents of Stephen Lang, Karen Allen and Peter Riegert, Gray casts them adrift, and when left to their own devices there’s not a fresh lick to be had in their overly familiar characterizations.

Gray’s idea of layering is a running gag involving the tongue-scorching temperature of mom’s entrées or a boss (Riegert) so cheap his marquée constantly throws grammatical caution to the wind.

There is one graceful moment to be found amidst the calculated ugliness. Wanting to impress her, Brian finger-etches Shauna’s portrait on a fogged-up bar room window. It’s a lovely, unexpected flash of originality, but not enough to recommend this monumental time-waster.

“Win Win” (2011)
Written and Directed by: Tom McCarthy from a story by McCarthy and Joe Tiboni
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Alex Shaffer, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young and Melanie Lynskey
Rating: 1

Writer/Director Tom McCarthy has already demonstrated a gift for confederating disparate characters, but how does one go from “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor” to reheating a formulaic made-for-ESPN cupcake? His latest, “Win Win,” is merely an attempt to blind side naive audiences with the absurd notion that itinerant youth can magically change their lives through contact sport and clean suburban living. And neither the performances nor an occasional moment of observational humor succeed in pulling it above the level of early-’80s feel-good.

Volunteering as coach for a floundering high school wrestling team isn’t about to keep Mike’s one man legal practice (he “helps old people”) from teetering on the brink of collapse. (McCarthy and co-writer Joe Tiboni are both former
high school grapplers.) When Mike learns the government pays $1,500 a month to look after seniors he quickly moves his client, the demented but financially fit Leo Poplar (Burt Young), from the latter’s comfortable but untenable digs to a more manageable nursing facility (Leo foots the bill), where brief daily visits are all that’s needed for Mike to fulfill his part of the bargain.

No sooner does Mike determine the disenfranchised senior’s living situation then who should arrive on scene but Leo’s estranged grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer). And wouldn’t you know it, the peroxide blond, uni-grimaced runaway lives to wrestle! In no time, the kid enrolls and becomes the team’s star attraction. A throwaway line by Stephen (“He’s good to wrestle; Mike cleared him”) is the only evidence offered of how a volunteer gym coach is endowed with enough clout to have strings pulled for him posthaste.

There isn’t an actor at work today more capable of adding depth and dimension to a sad sack than Paul Giamatti, but asking an audience to suddenly root for a character heretofore exposed as an unscrupulous wretch can only result in a no-win situation. Mike is more than just a flawed schlemiel cobbling together life’s meager resources in order to rise above a lousy situation. He’s a contestable jerk who lies to his wife (Amy Ryan) and relies on an Alzheimer’s patient and a troubled teen to save his hide. Aside from derisory stabs at forced humor where is the feel good in any of this? Even more contemptible is McCarthy’s newfound eagerness to aim for cuddly, obvious targets. Kicking things off is a recurring bit concerning a noisy basement boiler in Mike’s office that is pitched to a sitcom mentality.

Bobby Cannavale’s big, dumb goomba horndog routine (“The Ten,” “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” “The Other Guys”) was stale decades before he was born and McCarthy fails to scratch off any new layers. As written and performed, Cannavale’s
Terry Delfino is strictly a one-note affair: the over-sexed recent divorcee can’t get his mind around his ex’s cheating
ways. Add to that some unwelcome slapstick: Terry adds color commentary (and more unwarranted comic relief) to Mike and Kyle’s inevitable knock down, drag out “Red River” moment on the front lawn. There is also an insufferable subplot concerning Kyle reuniting with his fresh-out-of-rehab mom played by the fetching and always welcome  Melanie Lynskey.

Unless you favor great actors trying vainly to pump new life into formulaic pap, “Win Win” is a losing proposition.