The Big Year

[3.0 stars] [IMDB Link]

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A perhaps unlikely topic for a major motion picture: high-end obsessive/competitive bird-watching, sorry, "birding." (I have birders in my family, so I have a nodding acquaintance with the field, but nobody's at the level portrayed here.) It's billed as a comedy, but… it really feels more genre-free. It's just a story, illuminating a little world of which most of us are unaware. Yes, it's funny in spots. But so is life.

The story is about the struggle to observe a large number of bird species within a single calendar year within the USA/Canada. The previous champ in this area is Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson); looking to surpass him are retiring business genius Stu (Steve Martin), and amiable slacker Brad (Jack Black). And the movie pretty much just follows these guys around over the course of the year.

They go everywhere, pretty much at a moment's notice, at even the merest rumor that a rare species might show up at some remote location. Bostick is kind of a cocky jerk (but not a big enough jerk to make you hate him); Stu and Brad become buddies, united by their desire to see Bostick taken down a peg.

A big part of the movie is showing how the birding quest affects the less-obsessed: family, friends, associates. Stu's business ex-partners keep imploring him to come back to help; Bostick's wife wants to start a family, and (correctly) feels neglected; Brad's already lost one wife, and his no-nonsense dad (Mr. Brian Dennehy) wants him to settle down and start living in the real world. The one where you might occasionally see a pigeon scurrying out of your way on the sidewalk.

There's a lot of fantastic scenery. I was ready to believe that the filmmakers really did trot all over the continent for shooting, but IMDB claims that most of the locations were in British Columbia.

Here's one thing I found out: you can use the word "shit" once in a movie and still have a PG rating.

There are a lot of pretty well-known actors here in relatively minor roles. If you watch it, you may find yourself saying "Hey, that's…" a lot. (As in: "Hey, that's Anjelica Huston!")

There's nothing at all wrong here, but I keep remembering the insanely great movies Steve Martin used to make. Any chance we could get one more movie out of him comparable to Roxanne or L.A. Story?


Last Modified 2024-01-28 8:57 AM EDT