Pun Salad

The title makes my inner pedant grumble: "Shouldn't that be '10 Items or Fewer'?" There is a Wikipedia page devoted to the controversy; it comes down pretty firmly on the anti-prescriptivist side. For what it's worth, my local supermarket uses "fewer", probably because they don't mind catering to grammar nannies like me.

Anyway…

10 Items or Less was released back in 2006 to negligible box-office business. (This despite the fact that its star, Mr. Morgan Freeman, had just won an Oscar for his supporting role in Million Dollar Baby.) It had been in my Netflix queue a long time, and finally wiggled its way up to the top, the Netflix algorithm (correctly) predicting that I'd find it to be pretty darn good.

Mr. Freeman plays an unnamed actor, teetering on the edge of has-beenosity, preparing for a possible role in a shoestring movie as a supermarket night manager. This involves him showing up at a seedy supermarket in downscale Carson, California. He roams the aisles, soaking up the atmosphere, but pretty quickly zeroes in on Scarlet, the cashier working the guess-what aisle. (Scarlet is played by the extremely easy-on-the-eyes Spanish actress Paz Vega.) Scarlet has car problems, boyfriend problems, and job problems. The actor needs to find his way back to Brentwood. The movie soon becomes an odyssey as they team up to solve their mutual problems.

Both Mr. Freeman and Señorita Vega are fine actors, and they're given a lot of clever lines. The movie's not really about much except their characters, so a lot is on their shoulders, and they carry it off. Mr. Freeman especially seems to be having a lot of fun.

It's a short 82 minutes, and (to quibble) it kind of dragged at a couple points. Nevertheless, a worthwhile rental.