'The Big Bang'
(Antonio Banderas, Autumn Reeser, Sam Elliot, Jimmi Simpson, Snoop Dogg, et al / DVD / NR / 2011 / Anchor Bay Entertainment)
Overview: Late one night, Los Angeles private investigator, Ned Cruz (Antonio Banderas) gets a visit from a recently paroled Russian boxer with an intriguing job offer: find Lexie, his missing girlfriend and the 30-million dollar stash of diamonds she's hiding. As Detective Cruz sets out to find her, the clues send him into the city's seediest corners, from a Hollywood action star with a dirty little secret (James Van Der Beek), to an enterprising porn producer who takes a personal interest in his own work (Snoop Dogg), and a kinky waitress with an unusual fetish for particle physics (Autumn Reeser).
DVD Verdict: Antonio Banderas plays Ned Cruz a gumshoe who is hired by a Russian boxer, Anton 'The Pro' Protopov, (Robert Maillet) to find a stripper. Banderas does the typical gumshoe first person narration which turns out really sad due to his accent. In a comic boxing scene Anton crushes his opponent in the boxing ring, then suddenly remembers to take a dive. His quest involves a twisted plot which includes the porn industry which is shooting a movie called "The Black Hole" in a building called "Schrodingers", and a string of murders which follows Banderas as he searches for Lexie (Sienna Guillory).
Eventually Bandaras travels to New Mexico from California (was that the sunset he was driving into?) and goes to a restaurant called "Planck's Constant" (What? No Beta Bar?) Clearly if you haven't had a little atomic physics in your life, you are not going to get the little subtleties. The search for the missing person becomes metaphoric as searching for a theoretical particle. However if you can't figure it out, the movie explains it you.
The comical lines spoken by Banderas were good, but it was like having someone who can't tell a joke tell you a real funny joke. Someone like a younger Bruce Willis needed to play that role. If you are going to create a movie which is a metaphor, don't explain it in the movie. The audience is supposed to figure it out for themselves. Sam Elliot was good. This could have easily been a cult classic in the style of Tarantino, but having Banderas as the lead and explaining the metaphor in the film ruined it. Ending was good.
But, be aware that 'The Big Bang' contains multiple F-bombs, a physics lesson with sex and nudity and a lesson from the film to be learnt: Never film yourself having sex with an albino dwarf! [ML] This is a Full Screen Presentation (1.33:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:
Audio commentary with producer/director Tony Krantz and co-producer Reece Pearson
Lex Parsimoniae: The Making of The Big Bang
Extended Scenes
Trailer
www.AnchorBayEntertainment.com