Okay... It's an acquired taste. The Editor hates it and another staffer got 30 minutes in and found the existential angstifying a bit too bloody taxing for a Friday night. But if you click with it - - grief, it's genius. And the love it/loathe it factor has livened up our deadline no end (""It gets five stars over my cold, dead body!""). No one can accuse Three Kings writer/director David O Russell of not reaching. A star-packed ensemble laffer questioning the nature of existence? Beats the hell out of White Chicks. From Spanking The Monkey through Flirting With Disaster and, less obviously, Three Kings, Russell is fascinated by dysfunctional/ surrogate families and finding meaning and moral backbone.
Jason Schwartzman is the director's substitute here - - an environmental activist who hires Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin's existential 'tecs to investigate a coincidence and finds life (whatever that is) unravelling. Everyone is outstanding: from Naomi Watts's dim model-cum-"Amish bag lady" to Jude Law's smug suit fraying at the seams. Shot with muted beauty by Peter Deming, it brims with delirious invention, too - Schwartzman suckling at Jude Law's pendulous breasts; reality fracturing into floating cubes. But what gives Huckabees its `heart' is Mark Wahlberg's raw, hilarious and tender turn as Tommy the petroleum-obsessed firefighter. Fuelled by the filmmaker's passionate opinions on America's oil-driven warmongering and earthed by the star's working-class ethos, it's a performance to file alongside Brad Pitt's in Fight Club and Billy Bob Thornton's in The Man Who Wasn't There: too good for Oscar.
DVD Extras:
What you don't know can't hurt you, and the extras on this are very good. It's just that the two-disc Region One Special Edition boasts 50 minutes of deleted scenes instead of 17 and when the US offcuts include Shania Twain giving the finger, it's the difference between `very good' and `must have'. Still, the excellent Making Of here does include Hoffman unveiling his latex breasts and opining on arguing with a director: ""When they've written the motherfucker, you say `yes'. When they haven't written the motherfucker - - challenge, challenge, challenge..."" He's on top form, coming off as much lighter and fun-loving than his Methody rep implies. But with Russell around, any madness appears ordinary. There he is in four-minute featurette Miscellaneous Things People Did - wearing a toga. There he is, chowing down on Hoffman's jubblies. There he is, inviting crewmembers to cop off with Law: ""Are there any women who have a fantasy of sleeping with Jude while he has breasts?"" Russell's superb music video for Jon Brion's `Knock Yourself Out' is complemented by a 30-minute infomercial for Jaffe And Jaffe's detectives, with real-life philosophy ace Dr Robert ""Father of Uma"" Thurman, and Huckabees store commercials that offer the oddly erotic sight of Watts dressed as Santa. The director is surprisingly subdued on his interesting solo commentary, while Wahlberg, Schwartzman and Watts (via phone from the King Kong set) join him for the second track. Best anecdote, though, is surely Schwartzman watching his sex scene with Isabelle Huppert and recalling how she visited his mum, Talia Shire, when he was a baby and ""rocked me back and forth in her arms. And 22 years later..."" Russell chips in: ""You were rocking her back and forth in your arms!""
