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When Death to Smoochy (DTS) came out I'd heard nothing but bad things about it from film critics and never paid it much attention. But after stumbling upon it on the IMDb several years later, and reading numerous rave reviews about it, I decided to take a risk and give DTS a shot anyway.

For those who have spoken highly of the film's concept, acting, look, or uniqueness, I agree with you on those points. DTS throws out most of the conventional comedy mold and attempts to do something different and off the wall. The cast is also a great ensemble, including Edward Norton, Robin Williams, Catherine Keener, and Danny DeVitto among others.

The problem for me was the delivery of the humor just didn't work. DTS relies too much on the uniqueness of itself to generate laughs. A theoretically good concept can't make up for the lack of substance of the greater product. The movie just drags on and on for nearly two hours, despite barely having enough humorous material to fill half that time. The only scene that I really found memorable was Robin Williams's rant about a certain phallic shaped cookie.

Maybe I'm overlooking some deep inner meaning or something, but for me this film just didn't work and while some will no doubt like it for being different, it's a tough sell.

The Black Dahlia (TBD) is a tribute of sorts to the film noir flicks prevalent during its 1940's setting. Visually the film is quite stunning. De Palma and crew have done an excellent job creating the look of the period. This combined with creative camera work helps shape numerous memorable and inviting images. The jazzy musical score is also a great complement to the frequently dark, unsettling visuals.

But all of this glitz is overshadowed by the fact that TBD lacks any sort of discernible plot or character development. It starts feeling extremely rushed right out of the gate, cutting from scene to scene at break-neck speed, with only a few quick snippets of voice over from Bleichert (Josh Harnett) to try and guide us through the overload of seemingly random content. The direction and pacing is never really clear or coherent. My guess is that Brian De Palma had an ambitious idea here, but just couldn't seem to make it click within the film's running time and tried to compensate by cramming in as much content as possible at the expense of appropriate pacing.

The rest of the cast brings little to the mix. Aaron Eckhart plays Hartnett's partner, Lee Blanchard. The twosome shares a home with a female acquaintance of Lee's named Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson), whom both have a competing attraction to. The film attempts to utilize this love triangle dynamic as a parallel to the murder, with Lee becoming obsessed with the Dahlia case and turning abusive and unstable. The problem is that we are not given enough insight into either of these characters to care about them. We are just sort of expected to accept that they are troubled without being told why. Aside from looks Scarlett Johansson has no endearing quality in this film either. Her delivery comes across as unenthusiastic and underwhelming. Like Eckart, her character is one dimensional and fails to leave a lasting impression on us.

Once the Black Dahlia murder comes into play, the film switches gears and just sort of coasts along through the mid section, not really sure of what to do with itself. The murder investigation takes a back seat to the incoherent assortment of domestic problems between Bleichert, Lee, and Kay. After a series of interrogations and meeting which don't seem to lead anywhere, Bleichert abruptly pieces bits of the mystery together and rushes from local to local to pursue his suspects. I was continually left scratching my head over what he'd figured out and how he'd gotten there. And while the film tries to give us a conclusion to the chase, it again brings us no closer to interpreting the assortment of events leading up to it in any sort of coherent way. The film ends rather anti-climatically as well, but by that time I was just glad to be done with it.

Basically this film revolves around a wannabe comic (Sandler) trying to catch his big break as a stand up on a cruise ship. But his efforts are hampered by the obnoxious jerk currently providing the laughs, terrorists working for General Noriega, some Australian bimbo, evil flashbacks of his mother, and a whole lot of other bizarre happenings. How can this be bad?

Adam Sandler is a great comedian and he would eventually hit his stride with films like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, but what we have here is a disjointed mess of potentially good gags and characters ruined by horrible acting and an even worse script. Sandler trademarks such as the numerous flat characters which contribute many of the best lines in his latter films and the silly dream sequences and non-sequesters abound, but they just don't mesh together in any sort of funny or cohesive way.

Going Overboard was Adam Sandler's first foray into feature length film and an absolutely dismal attempt at that. This movie is so mind numbingly bad its not even funny because of it, its just plain sad to deal with and even die hard Sandler fans will struggle to last the full run time. What a waste.