From Deseret News archives:
'The Ten' doesn't add up
10 skits — 3 funny, 3 so-so, 4 dumb — make 1 unusual film
Film review
Three of the comic segments in "The Ten" are sort of funny. Three others are just so-so. And the remaining four are just dumb, painfully unfunny and/or downright crude.
That's not the kind of percentage filmmakers aim for, especially with something so irreverent that it's bound to upset large segments of the population.
"The Ten" is a series of interconnected skits tied thematically to the Ten Commandments, along with narration bits and wrap-around segments that star Paul Rudd as Jeff Reigert. Jeff is having strife with his spouse, Gretchen (Famke Janssen), who doesn't realize he is having an affair with a younger woman, Liz Anne (Jessica Alba). This story becomes the sequence about adultery.
Others that follow include:
• A doctor (co-screenwriter Ken Marino) who is convicted of killing a patient "as a goof."
• A lonely librarian (Gretchen Mol) who falls in love with a Mexican carpenter (Justin Theroux) she believes is Jesus.
• A celebrity impersonator (Oliver Platt) who pretends to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to help settle a parentage dispute.
• Materialistic neighbors (Liev Schreiber and Joe Lo Truglio) who are trying to out-accumulate each other.
• A woman (Winona Ryder) who is obsessed with a ventriloquist's dummy.
Co-screenwriter/director David Wain ("Wet Hot American Summer") has a lot of ideas, but unfortunately none worth exploring.
A scene that spoofs Woody Allen's style — right down to a joke about actress Dianne Wiest — is clever. One about a collection of male nudists who meet on Sunday is not.
"The Ten" is rated R for crude sexual humor and language (sight gags, references, strong profanity and other suggestive talk), simulated sex and other sexual contact, violence (beatings, some sexual violence and a stabbing), drug references, a scene depicting prison rape, full male nudity, slurs based on sexual preference, and some brief gore. Running time: 96 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com
