Caffeinated Clint
Kevin James has great taste in music. This is a guy who obviously spent as much time around the radio as a kid as he did the bathroom mirror – practicing his lines for the school play. Whether its some classic rock or an infectious pop tune from the ’80s, James is a master when it comes to padding his films with the masterful music of yesteryear. The soundtracks for the funny man’s music are so good, usually, they almost conceal the stench of the film itself.
“Here Comes the Boom” is James’s “Green Hornet” – a film destined to be better known as the movie in which James (as opposed to Seth Rogen in the aforesaid superhero flick) dropped a ton of weight, than for the goods swimming in the bottom of the bag.
Having said that, director Frank ‘The Wedding Singer’ Coraci’s film is unarguably one of James’ – who has been in a string of fluff fare, usually playing opposite Adam Sandler – better efforts. “Nice and subtle” says Henry Winkler’s music teacher character near the start of the film, and that, it seems isn’t just a bit of dialogue but the entire tone flat plan for the movie. Nice. Subtle. Sweet. Enjoyable. But entirely forgettable and not especially funny.
The film, part-comedy part-MMA recruitment video, stars James as a high school teacher who, upon hearing that a fellow teacher (Henry Winkler), the chap that directs the talented music group of the school, may lose his job due to school budget cuts, volunteers to start fighting for cash.
The newly thin James (who, without the blubber looks intriguingly like Jeremy Piven of “Entourage” fame) is as likeable as ever – the guy has the friendly commoner down part – but, unlike his parts in “Grown Ups” and “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry”, the man has something to do here too. Not only is James playing a slightly edgier, cheekier character than normal but he’s seemingly gone to great lengths to convincingly play the part of a MMA fighter. The guy looks trim, terrific and is impressive (even if movie magic did play a large part) in the biffo sequences, giving all of the fight scenes a great big bash.
Adding weighty support are comebacker Henry ‘The Fonz’ Winkler, the customarily sassy Salma Hayek, and the agreeably greasy Greg Germann.
Real-life MMA fan James, who co-wrote the script with Rock , proves he knows enough about the fight scene to make an enjoyable and authentic enough film about it (he’s roped in a number of famous faces into cameos too, including Bas Rutten) and, lack of laughs aside, may just shoulder-lock a few of those usually-brash critics of his as a result.
Extras : (Unpreviewed)
