Duets
USA 2000
Reviewed by John Wrathall
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Middle America, the present. In Las Vegas for the funeral of a former lover, Ricky Dean, who makes a living by hustling for cash at karaoke competitions, meets his long-lost daughter Liv who decides to follow him on the road. Cab-driver Billy Hannon discovers his girlfriend is cheating on him. Drunk in a bar, he is picked up by singer Suzi Loomis who persuades him to drive her to California for a karaoke contest. Todd Woods, a real-estate executive in the grip of a mid-life crisis, walks out on his wife and wanders into a bar where he discovers the liberating power of karaoke singing. Hitting the road, he gives a lift to ex-con Reggie Kane, who's on the run after sticking up (and apparently killing) a truck driver. In a bar, Todd introduces Reggie to karaoke. Finding Reggie's gun, Todd uses it to stick up a service station. Reggie tries to stop him. In the ensuing shootout the garage attendant is killed.
The three couples converge on a hotel in Omaha, Nebraska, for a karaoke competition. In the foyer, Billy meets Liv; they instantly fall for each other. Meanwhile the police are closing in on Reggie, who decides to take the blame for the shooting at the service station. While Reggie is on stage, police enter the auditorium. Reggie pulls out a gun and is shot dead.
Todd is reunited with his wife, who has been summoned to Omaha by Reggie. Billy and Suzi offer Ricky and Liv a lift to another karaoke competition in Nevada.
Review
The idea of Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis duetting with Smokey Robinson's 'Cruisin'' might not seem like an immediate selling point for a movie. But Duets, set in the karaoke bars of the Midwest, actually works best in its musical moments: like the best musicals, it makes us care about the characters' state of mind whenever they open their mouths to sing. It's when they put the mikes down that Duets runs into problems.
Screenwriter John Byrum introduces his characters effectively in a series of wry vignettes. Todd, the travelling salesman on the verge of a breakdown, stumbles into a meeting room and is half way through his sales pitch before realising he's in the wrong hotel in the wrong town in the wrong state. Cab-driver Billy is summoned to drive a fare home from the police cells, only to discover it's his old teacher. Washed-up hustler Ricky, in Las Vegas to pay his last respects to his dead ex, gets chatting to a spaced-out showgirl at the funeral parlour before realising she's his long-lost daughter Liv. Thereafter the film settles down into a loose road-movie format, tracking its three mismatched duos from bar to bar across the Midwest. (Writer-director of the 1979 Jack Kerouac/Neal Cassady biopic Heart Beat, Byrum clearly knows his genre.)
Unfortunately, as with so many of the current crop of multi-strand movies (including the top-of-the-range Magnolia), you can't help wishing the writer had concentrated on the most interesting story of the bunch - in this case Todd's odd-couple friendship with fugitive hitchhiker Reggie. While the Todd/
Reggie strand provides the film's dramatic and comic highlights, it also seems underdeveloped. A fugitive killer who decides to play guardian angel to a complete stranger (and turns out to sing like a dream), Reggie is a barely credible creation, despite André Braugher's charismatic performance. As if aware of the flaws here, director Bruce Paltrow cuts away at the two crucial moments when Reggie is about to shoot someone - presumably it's easier for the audience to love a killer if we don't actually see him killing. A bolder film-maker would have shown the murders full on and found a way to embrace the contradiction in Reggie's character.
Paltrow is an experienced television director, best known for his work on hospital soap St. Elsewhere; Duets, however, is his first feature film in 18 years, following his long-forgotten debut A Little Sex. One can only assume that his daughter Gwyneth's willingness to appear in a comparatively minor role helped get the project greenlit. Paltrow senior succeeds in extracting solid performances (and decent singing) from an interesting cast, not least Huey Lewis, who brings a craggy, worldly authority to Ricky, and the pop-eyed Paul Giamatti as Todd, finally getting a juicy lead after a string of nerdy supporting roles. But a younger, hipper director might have given this the edge it sorely lacks.
Credits
- Director
- Bruce Paltrow
- Producers
- Kevin Jones
- Bruce Paltrow
- John Byrum
- Screenplay
- John Byrum
- Director of Photography
- Paul Sarossy
- Editor
- Jerry Greenberg
- Production Designer
- Sharon Seymour
- Music
- David Newman
- ©Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
- Production Companies
- Hollywood Pictures presents in association with Seven Arts Pictures and Beacon Pictures a Kevin Jones production
- Executive Producers
- Lee R. Mayes
- Neil Canton
- Tony Ludwig
- Alan Riche
- Associate Producer
- Katherine E. Beyda
- Production Supervisor
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Laura 'LT' Tateishi
- Production Co-ordinators
- Lisa Ragosin
- Andrea Boorman
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Lesley Silvey
- Unit Production Manager
- Katherine E. Beyda
- Location Managers
- Janice Frome
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Jeff Crandell
- 2nd Unit Director
- Jack Gill
- Assistant Directors
- Jim Brebner
- Kevin G. Fair
- Darren Robson
- Las Vegas Crew:
- David Fudge
- Script Supervisor
- Christine Wilson
- Casting
- Francine Maisler
- Kathleen Driscoll-Mohler
- Vancouver:
- Stuart Aikens
- LA Associates:
- Kathryn Eisenstein
- Jon Strotheide
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Ray Favero
- Camera Operators
- Mark Willis
- Las Vegas Crew:
- John Sosenko
- Steadicam Operators
- Nathaniel Massey
- Jim van Dijk
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Dan Kneece
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Darren Marcoux
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Skip Burrows
- Graphic Designer
- Brentan Harron
- Karaoke Lyric Designer
- Scott Steyns
- Karaoke Computer Playback
- Scott Bourgeois
- Art Director
- William Heslup
- Set Designer
- Bill McMahon
- Set Decorators
- Lesley Beale
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Denise Pizzini
- Draftsman
- Alex Kameniczky
- Scenic Artist
- Beatrix Schalk
- Costume Designer
- Mary Claire Hannan
- Costume Supervisor
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Lola Chambers
- Key Make-up Artists
- Tina Earnshaw
- Jo Ann Fowler
- Key Hairstylists
- Kay Georgiou
- Ian Ballard
- Title Design
- Nina Saxon/New Wave Entertainment
- Optical House
- Cinema Research
- Orchestrations
- Alexander Janko
- Daniel Hamuy
- Music Supervisors
- Richard Rudolph
- Maya Rudolph
- Music Editors
- Carl Kaller
- Production:
- Stephanie Lowry
- Production Music Recordist
- Michael Colomby
- Music Playback
- Rob Graham
- Scoring Mixer
- John Kurlander
- Scoring Consultant
- Krys Newman
- Soundtrack
- "At This Moment" - Lochlyn Munro; "Honky Tonk Mood" - Marty Lewis; "Feeling Alright", "Lonely Teardrops" - Huey Lewis; "I Can't Make You Love Me", "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" - Larry Klein; "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" - Maya Rudolph; "Texas", - Edgar Winter; "Hello, It's Me" - Paul Giamatti; "What I Like about You" - Tony Marr; "All in Good Time" - Danny Donnelly; "Mexican Radio" - Wall of Voodoo; "Keep on Rockin'" - Edgar Winter and Shane August featuring The End; "Islands in the Stream" - Wyley Vlahovic and Barbara Elliot; "Try a Little Tenderness" - Paul Giamatti and Arnold McCuller; "Rock and Roll Part 2" - Gary Glitter; "Bette Davis Eyes" - Gwyneth Paltrow; "The Tide Is High" - Candus Churchill; "What Have You Done for Me Lately" - Dan Joffre; "It's Raining Men" - Erin Wright, Nicole Parker-Smith, Marlaina Andre; "Delilah" - 'Karaoke Karl' Detken; "Strangers in the Night" - Michael Bublé; "Blue Moon" - Larry and Anita Dutton; "Cruisin'" - Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis; "Copacabana" - John Pinette; "Free Bird" - Arnold McCuller; "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" - Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds; "Alley Cat"
- Scoring Sound Designer
- Marty Frasu
- Sound Mixers
- Production:
- Eric Batut
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Geoffrey L. Patterson
- Re-recording Mixers
- Elliot Tyson
- Tom Dahl
- Recordist
- Steve Kohler
- Supervising Sound Editors
- Donald J. Malouf
- Todd Toon
- Sound Editors
- Adam Kopald
- Piero Mura
- Dialogue Editor
- John Kwiatkowski
- ADR
- Supervising Editor:
- Jim Brookshire
- Editors:
- Linda Folk
- Michele Perrone
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Ernie Jackson
- Las Vegas Crew:
- Jack Gill
- Cast
- Maria Bello
- Suzi Loomis
- André Braugher
- Reggie Kane
- Paul Giamatti
- Todd Woods
- Huey Lewis
- Ricky Dean
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Liv
- Scott Speedman
- Billy Hannon
- Marian Seldes
- Harriet Gahagan
- Kiersten Warren
- Candy Woods
- Angie Phillips
- Arlene
- Angie Dickinson
- Blair
- Lochlyn Munro
- Ronny Jackson
- Carol Alexander
- Beth the hostess
- Michael Rogers
- Tulsa bartender
- Amanda Kravat
- redhead
- Ian Robison
- Roger Haskett
- John Payne
- sales guys
- Tom Bougers
- desk sergeant
- Steve Oatway
- Ralph Beckerman
- Erika von Tagen
- Julie
- Laura Murdoch
- dead showgirl
- Roman Danylo
- Albuquerque desk clerk
- Keegan Tracy
- Sheila
- Ann Warn Pegg
- Taffy
- Ron Small
- old homeless man
- Tony Marr
- Japanese businessman
- Brian Jensen
- Cincinnati bartender
- Tom Heaton
- Charlie
- Andrew Johnston
- shop manager
- Wyley Vlahovic
- desert joint man
- Beverly Elliott
- desert joint woman
- Diane Brown
- desert joint hostess
- Warren Takeuchi
- Texas trooper 1
- Aaron Pearl
- Buddy
- J.B Bivens
- Clark
- Candus Churchill
- karaoke woman
- Brent Butt
- Kansas motel clerk
- David Neale
- desk manager
- Mike 'Mitch' Mitchell
- K.C. gas station attendant
- Iris Quinn
- K.C. hostess
- Brenda Crichlow
- Omaha clerk
- Maya Rudolph
- Omaha karaoke hostess
- Marlaina Andre
- Michael Bublé
- 'Karaoke Karl' Detken
- Dan Joffre
- Nicole Parker-Smith
- Erin Wright
- finale singers
- Anita Dutton
- Tonia Kasper
- Larry Dutton
- Hobie Kasper
- Gary Hetherington
- Omaha police captain
- John Pinette
- John
- Susan Campbell
- airline representative
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Icon Film Distribution
- 10,062 feet
- 111 minutes 48 seconds
- Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS
- In Colour
- Prints by
- Technicolor
- 2.35:1 [Super 35]