Bad movies bond guys in critical way

It is probably about time to report how my (semi) retirement is going. The answer is quite well, thank you, although some of my activities have been unexpected.

I knew I'd play a lot of tennis and go to the gym regularly and, when not exercising, drive my wife crazy. But I did not expect to become a regular moviegoer.

Yet in coming back to California after an absence of 21 years, this is what I have done. I have always liked a good movie, but those are not the movies I have been going to see. My old friend Mike is to blame.

Shortly after coming back, he told me that he and another mutual friend, Gary, had been taking a break from driving their wives crazy by catching an early evening movie every Wednesday.

Would I like to join them in these outings, which always end in a meal and a beer someplace? "Certainly," I said.

"There's just one thing," Mike said. "We only go to movies that have no socially redeeming value."

Apparently the thinking was that if a movie had a message, the producers were always free to send us an email and we could save the early-bird $7.25 senior discount and just go have the beer.

As one who writes a weekly column said by some to have no socially redeeming value, this did not seem a problem. So that is how I have come to see some of the shallowest attempts at entertainment Hollywood has to offer. They have been a revelation.

It appears the car chase has been raised to a fine art since I last looked in. And things blowing up? It is a wonder anybody living near these film locations still has eardrums.

The first movie we went to see was "Run All Night," starring Liam Neeson. It was, as they say, action-packed, with people being shot and otherwise being made dead throughout. I recommend it to any undertaker worried about business and in need of cheering up.

On the other hand, "Get Hard," starring Will Ferrell, almost made us run into the night. As the title suggests, this comedy is not advised for nuns or indeed anybody with any moral scruple. A few adjectives come to mind, with juvenile, puerile and vile chief among them.

True, it had a few funny moments, as happens when bad jokes are remorselessly piled on bad jokes until a good joke turns up, a tactic I have sometimes employed myself. But when these rare jokes did arrive, we felt dirty laughing.

Halfway through, Gary suddenly got up, said "I can't stand this anymore" and disappeared. This was shocking. In 15 years of rotten-movie attendance, neither Mike nor Gary had ever walked out of a movie because it was so bad. Suddenly the whole rationale of the outing seemed threatened.

But when the house lights finally came up to put an end to our suffering, Gary was sitting way in the back. He hadn't left in a fit of good taste — no, he just couldn't stand the person behind him coughing. Well, that was a relief.

Much better entertainment was "Furious 7," part of a longer series I had completely missed when I was more sensible. The star was Vin Diesel, who acts as well as anyone named for an automotive fuel could be expected to act.

In the complete absence of socially redeeming value, but not so much as to be socially corrosive, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Later in the month, however, an unsettling movie came along "Danny Collins," starring the great Al Pacino as a worn-out rock star trying to recapture the promise of his early career and re-establish links to his estranged family. It soon became obvious that this movie was good and might even qualify as containing socially redeeming value.

As you can imagine, some grumbling was heard later in the men's room about its quality. Gary put it best: "You know, our wives might have enjoyed that film." That put a pall on the proceedings, because it is a sad day in America when a trio of guys can't go out and find some gratuitous cinematic trash.

But we will survive. As you may have guessed, the movies are the least of it. The plot's real purpose is the camaraderie.

Reg Henry
(TNS)/ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Reg Henry is deputy editorial-page editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.