‘Man,’ is that movie awful

Meaningless without mercy, “The Man” is a mind-numbing attempt at

comedy that might be hazardous to your intelligence.

It’s a brutally boring cop buddy movie that can only wish it was

“Lethal Weapon” or “48 Hours.” Everything wrong about formula movie

making is on display in this turkey. Tired old ideas are rehashed

without purpose or logic to produce a worthless exercise in

mediocrity.

This screenplay would not pass muster on a decent TV show. Good

actors are wasted in stereotyped roles far beneath their true

abilities.

Samuel L. Jackson is the tough guy cop and Eugene Levy is the

unwitting ordinary guy caught up in an underworld plot to sell a

truckload of stolen guns. But all the players in “The Man” march

across the screen like tin soldiers with their pants down, begging

you to laugh at them because nothing else is funny about this

enterprise.

For a film with a PG-13 rating, it’s full of foul language and

disturbing slang references to women. Relentlessly stupid, it gives

“The Dukes of Hazzard” a run for its money as the year’s dumbest

film.

Painfully pointless, this is a movie no one needed to make, no one

needs to see, and no one will recommend.

* JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator

for the Orange County public defender’s office.

‘An Unfinished Life’ feels incomplete

Well, the previews for “An Unfinished Life” sure looked good, but

what a disappointment.

Despite all the things in its favor -- director Lasse Hallstrom

(“The Cider House Rules”) and stars Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman

-- the movie is well meaning but hokey, well-acted but predictable.

Redford plays Einar Gilkyson, a Wyoming rancher who shares the

place with ranch hand Mitch Bradley (Freeman).

Mitch was badly mauled by a bear the year before, his pain and

scars matched only by Einar’s bitterness over the death of his son 12

years ago.

Redford is in his element as a crusty, grizzled, recovering

alcoholic. He looks after Mitch, who is racked with constant pain but

still has the benign, wise dignity Freeman has shown in all his roles

since “The Shawshank Redemption.” Apart from an odd fixation on the

bear that attacked him, there are no surprises here.

When Jean Gilkyson’s boyfriend beats her again, she shows up at

the ranch in the form of Jennifer Lopez. Einar still blames his

widowed daughter-in-law for son Griffin’s fatal accident, but she is

desperate. She also has a daughter by Griffin that Einar has never

met.

Can young Griff (Becca Gardner) melt her grandfather’s heart? Will

Mitch ever stop fussing about that bear? Will J.Lo -- I mean Jean --

ever run out of bronzer?

Even the ever-reliable Bart the Bear is boring, especially in

comparison to this summer’s “Grizzly Man.”

* SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant

for a financial services company.