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MADE

The last film produced, and starring Jon Faverau and Vince Vaughn was 1996's indie hit: "Swingers" (written by Faverau). * * * *

The follow up "MADE" is a quirky comedy-drama (that's not as easy to like as Swingers) about two unlikely friends who find themselves doing a favor for Max, an L.A. mobster (Peter Falk) who sends the unlikely pair to work with a New York City associate (Sean -formerly Puff Daddy now P. Diddy- Combs). If you're in the right mood it's an interesting, often funny comedy. If you ain't in the mood.. forgetaboutit. You'll be trapped for 97 minutes with one of the most annoying motor-mouthed characters ever put on screen. * * * *

"Made" was quickly put together to allow Faverau and Vaugn the chance to work together again. Faverau wrote it and directed it , produced it with Vaugn and (former "A Christmas Story" star) Ralph Billingsley, and both Faverau and Vaugn star in it. * * * *

It's a quirky comedy-drama and shows a strong influence of the Soprano's throughout . Faverau did a guest appearance as a film-maker on the Sopranos (second season) and based on that decided to use a few Soprano actors in his film as well. * * * *

Faverau is Bobby, a second rate boxer in Los Angeles, who's record is 5-5-1. Bobby works construction jobs during the day, and acts as security and driver for his girlfriend, Jessica (Famke Jensen) an out-call stripper by night. He's also genuinely likes and is a responsible dad to her 7 year old daughter Chloe. Bobby's also more or less the father to his impossible friend, Ricky (Vince Vaughn). He gets his impossible friend jobs and is constantly bailing Ricky out of tough jams. Ricky is a motor-mouthed jerk whose constantly out of control and getting everyone around him in trouble. So why are Bobby and Ricky friends? They grew up to together (in Los Angeles), they've always been friends and quite frankly that's just the way it is. Some friends like moles and freckles and bad skin pigmentation you are seemingly born with. We also learn that Ricky took a bullet for Bobby around they time they graduated from high school. * * *

Vince Vaughn attacks the part of Ricky without concern for making the character likeable to an audience. Five minutes after meeting him, you'll probably have an urge to strangle the guy. He's a motor-mouthed obscenity spewing, trouble making bad luck charm, that gets himself and everyone around him into hot water. * * *

Ricky is a train wreck not just waiting to happen, but about to happen again… and Bobby refused to jump off before it's too late. Bobby you see is obsessive about doing the right thing by his best and oldest friend. * * *

Bobby loses his temper one night when a bachelor party guest gets very fresh with Jessica one night. He beats up one of the party boys and that winds up costing mobster Max (Peter Falk) 8,000 dollars. Now , Max is a reasonable guy up to a point and so he tells Bobby that he can no longer drive around the woman he's in love with to her out-call stripping gigs. Instead he wants Bobby to work with some associates of his in New York City and deliver a package for them. Bobby insists on taking his friend Ricky with him. The mobster doesn't like Bobby's friend at all. In fact he blames Ricky for allowing one of his van trucks to be stolen and doesn't trust him. He makes Bobby vouch for his friend Ricky and agree to take all responsibility for him. Bobby foolishly does. * * *

Nothing is simple for Bobby and Ricky when they get together. Ricky thinks it's his duty to show off and act up, and Bobby is forced to act as interference and get his friend out of the jams his inappropriate mouth and attitude get him into in the first place. * * *

* Vincent Pastore (from the Sopranos) plays a driver/bodyguard/tour guide who takes the fish out water Los Angelenos around New York City --they stay in SoHo and meet their contact Ruiz (Sean Combs) in the wrong part of Harlem and then get involved with some Irish/Welsh gangsters in Brooklyn. * * * *

The movie is almost all talk and a lot of the talk consists of the 'F' word. I'm a little tired of listening to how colorfully the F word can be used by characters who play gangsters but since they are character who THINK they are gangsters (and are from L.A.), it's utterly appropriate they should talk like exaggerated characters from a Scorsese mob movie-- or The Sopranos and so they do. I also think we've seen enough variations on mob movies at this point in history. I'm a huge fan of the Sopranos but another movie that involves mobster low-lifes isn't something I was dying to see. * * * * I'm surprised that I liked "Made" but I found it engaging, and it made me laugh quite a bit. I might even watch it again. Come to think of it, the film reminded me in many ways of the enjoyable comedy Elaine May directed which starred John Cassevetes and Peter Falk called Mikey and Nicky (1976).

Made is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. Over-all the film looks very good on DVd thought there is some edge enhancement visible. The colors are bright and sharp and the black levels are very strong. Cinematographer Christopher Doyle does a particular impressive job in the film considering it's a dialogue driven very low budget affair. * * * *

The film's soundtrack is in both Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround as well as Dolby Digital 2.0. There's not much here that will give your surround home theater set-up a work-out but the music uses whatever system you have very well and the dialogue is clear, and easy to hear.* * * .

It's pretty rare that a recent small indie film (5 million budget) that didn't do much at the box-office gets a full blown Special Edition DVD… but that's what Artisan did for the DVD of MADE. * * *

WOW there's a lot here.* * * The best of the extras are the three mini-documentaries about the making of the film that you can actually watch back to back (yipee) without going to the menu and clicking on the various parts of it. They last about 40 minutes total. * * *

In "Getting it Made" Faverau, Vaugn and co-Producer Peter Billingsley (aka the grown-up Ralphie of "A Christmas Story) discuss how they set up the film with Artisan and started putting the pieces of the film together. * * *

In "The Creative Process, the three talk about how they approached the writing, filming and characters of the project.* * *

In "The Music of Made" the discussion revolves around how they worked with a music producer to provide music on a low low budget for the film.* * *

In the More Made Footage section you'll find 9 outtake clips which consists mostly of actors blowing their lives over and over again or cracking up inappropriately. There are 5 deleted scenes including an alternate ending--and only one of the deleted scenes (The Little Red Schoolhouse) shows much promise. There are also 9 alternate/extended scenes from the film.* * *

All of the scenes can be viewed with or without commentary. Make sure you listen to the commentary on these for some interesting film-making insights. * * *

Music Cues is where you will find all of the musical cues used in the film as well as more than two dozen that were not used in the film. If you got a lot of time on your hands…….* * *

The Scene Editing Workshop allows you to preview four different set-ups that make up a short sequence in the film. You have some limited choices in how to build the scene the way you think it should go and then you can compare what you did with how the scene appears in the film. If you've never edited video it's an interesting and fun exercise to try out. * * * *

Also included is the films regular and teaser theatrical trailers, production notes, cast and crew biographies and DVD ROM features include the ability to access the screenplay and compare it to the film.

The feature length commentary is done by Faverau, Vaugn and Billingsley. This is not your ordinary commentary. You know how John Madden draws circles and arrows all over football plays on the television? Well the gang is able to use arrows and circles to point things out to us as they are talking. They make a big deal of showing us Jonathan Silverman in the bachelor party scene and things occassionally get silly when they can't resist abusing the technology they are using and play tic tac toe. * * * *

Most of the time the commentary is serious and informative however. There's not nearly as much joking around as you might think and while a lot of the information is adequately covered in the documentary there's plenty for everyone to talk about and do to fill up the track with Mostly engaging commentary. You can choose to see circle and arrow feature or just hear the commentary by the way. Might as well go all out and get the full experience.

I like MADE a lot. It's not for everyone though. If hearing the "F" word a lot turns you off, don't even think about trying to watch this film. There's one scene where in less than two minutes we hear variations on the F word 20 times… Really. For a lot of people this film will create head-aches. The film is a minor one and is not nearly as good as half the episodes of H.B.O.'s cable series The Sopranos, (but then what is?). It's a well acted, sometimes funny, quirky character driven little film well presented on DVD by Artisan. The DVD is loaded with extra features, some of which I found of interest. Then again, a lot of people flock to bad, head-ache inducing comedies like: Corky Romano, The Animal, Little Nicky, Freddy Got Fingered, and The Ladies Man ; all of which I found to be utterly tortuous films which wasted the celluloid they were made with (despite the possible fleeting glimmers of talent on display). MADE in comparison to those is a masterpiece.

Christopher Jarmick, is the author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder a critically acclaimed, steamy suspense thriller. For more information visit the web site at: http://www.radiofreegallery.com/jarmicknholder.htm * * * * * * Original portions of this review Copyright© Christopher J. Jarmick 2001. The above work is protected by international copyright law.