A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
Directed by Danny Boyle
Upon being fired, a desperate guy kidnaps a daughter of his former boss. Two angels are sent to Earth to check if love is possible in this case.
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What critics compared A Life Less Ordinary to
Tarantino's breakthrough reimagining of the crime movie has inspired countless would-be successors, some rather good (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Go), others borderline unwatchable (A Life Less Ordinary, Lucky Number Slevin, Smokin' Aces).
Tonally, it’s a bit like Danny Boyle ’s misguided “A Life Less Ordinary” — with a promising British talent lured by America who is too eager to please and finds himself in way over his head.
She is a former model without an extensive acting background before her debut in "The Mask," but she excels within her range, and she is every bit the sparkling equal of the trained, experienced McGregor, who is virtuoso enough to have appeared in the very different "Trainspotting," "Emma" and "The Pillow Book," all in the same year.
Freed from a series of numbing supporting roles -- Jim Carrey's foil in "The Mask," the nice girl in Julia Roberts's last film, "My Best Friend's Wedding" -- Diaz blows the movie apart and makes you hate it for trying to confine her.
While director Danny Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge (both from "A Life Less Ordinary" and "Trainspotting") try to elicit both eroticism and danger from that part of the material, few decent sparks fly from either aspect.
Director Danny Boyle who impressed audiences with "Shallow Grave" and "Transpotting" then hit a bump in the road with the uneven "A Life Less Ordinary" really seems out of his element in this very lightweight, mainstream Leo vehicle.
I even enjoyed most of "A Life Less Ordinary" (1997), even though it was a lesser film that didn't really go anywhere.
I should check out Boyle's commentary to find out just how troubled this production was, because it underachieves in an unusual way for him -- even the two Boyle films I like less ( Slumdog Millionaire and A Life Less Ordinary) are hardly "underachieving" failures so much as bad ideas socked over with oppressive virtuosity and misplaced faith in themselves.
Their last film, "A Life Less Ordinary," was drained of color and bloodless in its corny optimism.
Overrated director Danny Boyle ("A Life Less Ordinary"/ "Trainspotting"/"Shallow Grave") is skilled mostly at getting energetic performances from the actors and having beautiful visual sets.
I would have loved that last bit to move towards the surrealism of Boyle’s A Life Less Ordinary, but the payoff of their strangers’ arc is worthwhile nonetheless.
Whether it is individuals unexpectedly coming into money (Shallow Grave, Millions), or tales of finding love in the face of danger (Slumdog Millionaire, A Life Less Ordinary), Boyle has always brought a unique angle to his filmmaking.
Boyle’s the kind of filmmaker whose every movie is something different, and this is his first proper comic-romantic-fantastic outing since the frankly weird A Life Less Ordinary 22 years ago.
The propulsive thump of Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life” will be forever associated with a gaggle of Scottish junkies running from the cops in Trainspotting ; 28 Days Later makes a brief moment of levity more memorable with Grandaddy’s “AM 180 ”; even a forgotten flop like A Life Less Ordinary boasts a standout song-and-dance sequence.
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Danny Boyle’s best works coerce the fantastic elements of his protagonist’s plight from the gruelling reality of their existence – Trainspotting (1996), the under-rated A Life Less Ordinary (1997), 28 Days Later... (2002) and Sunshine (2007).
He burst on the scene with the great “Trainspotting,” which was followed by the highly underrated “A Life Less Ordinary” and the lackluster Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle “The Beach.”
Some have worked (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “Sunshine”), others have failed (“A Life Less Ordinary”), but he’s remained a captivating, intrepid presence on the movie scene.
Given that the story is essentially a claustrophobic one-man show, “127 Hours” promises a mixed bag of Mr. Boyle’s most visceral impulses, from the imposing geography that served as backdrop for “A Life Less Ordinary” to the remote tension that percolated through “Sunshine.”
Even lesser entries in Boyle’s canon like A Life Less Ordinary, The Beach and (for me, at least) Slumdog Millionaire open with scenes that bristle with the director’s energy and wit.
Boyle has always been a showy filmmaker with a tendency toward overdirecting, but it’s been a while (at least since 1997’s bizarre romantic farce A Life Less Ordinary) that his flash has been this distracting.
Then came a minor setback in 1997 with a kidnap-melodrama A Life Less Ordinary and a major setback in 2000 with a badly misfiring post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, The Beach, shot in Thailand.
But his total feature filmography runs the gamut, and so this deceptively simple-sounding story of a street kid from India who finds himself on the cusp of winning big on Kaun Banega Crorepati (the country's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) doesn't seem so odd in the midst of eclectic fare such as Sunshine, Shallow Grave , The Beach , A Life Less Ordinary , and (especially) Millions.
That sort of hyped-up aesthetic can quickly turn wearying, as it has in several of Boyle’s less successful ventures (including Shallow Grave and the duly forgotten A Life Less Ordinary); but here it is a fount of renewable energy.
Like Jamal, Boyle seems to have unwittingly prepared for this moment his entire life: establishing a singular oeuvre with his 1996 breakthrough Trainspotting, stylishly failing with The Beach and A Life Less Ordinary, then reinventing genres with 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Millions.