Greenfingers

Greenfingers (2000)

Genres - Comedy, Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Comedy of Manners, Prison Film  |   Release Date - Jul 27, 2001 (USA - Limited), Jul 27, 2001 (USA)  |   Run Time - 91 min.  |   Countries - United Kingdom, United States  |   MPAA Rating - R
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Review by Derek Armstrong

The cookie-cutter Full Monty clone became a really ugly construct with the release of the wilted comedy Greenfingers. Waking Ned Devine did it well, Saving Grace a little less so. By the time this film tried to repeat the formula for British whimsy amongst motley people and circumstances, it had become transparent piracy. Greenfingers does not deserve charismatic talents like Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, and David Kelly, the last of whom appears in a blatant clutch toward Devine's coattails. What it deserves is a merciless rewrite -- so merciless, in fact, that it would involve chucking the movie and starting over with new seedlings. Maybe Scottish plumbers running a radio station? Full of idiotic plot contrivances, story-advancing montages, and weirdly out-of-place pop songs from the likes of Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, and U2 (and let's not forget the groan-worthy usage of Tears for Fears' "Sowing the Seeds of Love"), Greenfingers is a choppy arrangement indeed. With only one little-known comedy under his directing belt, seven years in the past, Joel Hershman would seem to have been installed by the producers so he would paint by the numbers without asking questions. Except that he wrote the script, so doing the movie may have been his bad idea to begin with. Taking the story from actual events does not excuse the filmmakers from tightening the slack narrative and following up with the characters they introduce. They may have been too busy scouting Irish piano tuners who sing karaoke.