It is a rare night. I am actually considering calling for delivery. Sadly, all my favorite take out is wrestler hair greasy. Being a hotel front desk agent frowns on my clothes looking like I had just headlocked Bret Hart.
Roman ruined everything. His apparent admiration of Hart lead me to question Bret's style in the 90's. If anything, that should be taken as a good prognosis in his current cancer bout. If televised wrestling could not thrive with him, neither shall leukemia.
Hair and hunger do not mix. That seems like a great way to transition to a Bruce Willis straight-to-DVD feature, "Once Upon a Time in Venice" (beach).
Steve Ford (Willis) is a disgraced cop turned private investigator who is trying to make ends meet taking on any ridiculous job. His range of work spans from making his protege John (Thomas Middleditch) survey an ashamed sex addict to tracking down an aspiring, obscene Banksy enthusiast that has been tagging a crooked real estate agent's property. He seems to also lack maturity since he is considers nude skateboarding an acceptable escape method, but makes up for that by taking care of the down and out Dave (John Goodman) and his sister's family as her husband is off somewhere trying to find himself. As long as he can watch his niece's dog during the day, everything is fine.
Needless to say, when his sister's place is ransacked by a couple of addicts who fence the gains and dog to their dealer Spider (Jason Mamoa), Steve's life will go out of control. Spider seems cool, perhaps too cool because his girlfriend had the nerve to decide to run off with the dog and a case of his cocaine. It appears everybody needs to get their lives in order and it is up to Steve to do it. This is the only way to get the pooch back and leave Venice a place with some sensibility.
"Once Upon a Time in Venice" is amusing until you stop and think about it. The story ends up working out, but is a mess until the third act. You are impressed that all the loose events resolve rather smoothly, but aside from some fun performances, you spend the first two acts getting fed up with the wacky scenarios that are constantly introduced and yearn for a cohesive story.
The movie starts with misdirecting you into thinking that Middleditch will be your lead. Having been given nothing to do, he is virtually replaced by Goodman. Willis is fun, but it is John McClane as the cocky hero the entire film who is unaffected by any situation's levity. As for the rest of the performances, you may get a good scene from an actor, but the ridiculous set up for what are primarily cameos is migraine inducing.
Mark Cullen's directing ability is not any more adequate than his and his brothers writing. He seems to think that Kevin Smith's method of filming comedy can apply to action, hence there is none. You are surprised that they even took the time to allow for gun play because it cannot be framed by this talent.
I could not find out the budget of this film, but I am thinking that it all went to get Bruce Willis since these are also the writers of "Cop Out." That film left us with a Willis and Kevin Smith Feud. "Cop Out" only has one subplot. You are telling me that Willis wanted his character to be drawn and quartered across that film, and that is the he hated filming that was because Smith said no.
"Once Upon a Time in Venice" is funny but it is not a movie. It is a series of "Saturday Night Live" sketches at best. The problem with that is the Cullen Brothers fail to realize that show requires all new characters for each sketch. Venice Beach is not "Dante's Inferno," and if Willis is not required to show more emotion than he offered in "The Expendables" you have dog poo without any poo jokes.
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