One Night At McCool's Reviews

Great cast, good start — shame, then, that this Night out starts flagging by early evening. Set in McCool's bar, the film kicks off with the arrival of slinky, red-sheathed femme fatale Liv Tyler. She's the sort of woman that men don't so much live for as die for. And guess what? One does. Yet the killing further fuels the passions of besotted barman Matt Dillon, waterholing lawyer Paul Reiser and investigating homicide detective John Goodman. Starting out fine as a black comedy, the film loses its way with a desperate desire to be hip, a cleverdick triple-perspective structure and a descent into unfunny farce. Michael Douglas co-produced, and cameos as a hit man with an extremely weird wig. Pluses for film buffs are the allusions to Douglas's white-collar madman role in Falling Down and to the shoot-out scene in Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino's hip thriller True Romance. This cast certainly deserves better.

Ramshackle comedy that suffers from the miscasting of Liv Tyler as a femme fatale, though there's enjoyment to be found elsewhere, notably in Douglas's toothy, bingo-playing hit-man.

Randy (Dillon) is minding the bar and his own business, when in comes Jewel (Tyler), the sort of vamp he could only... read more on Time Out

Great cast, good start — shame, then, that this Night out starts flagging by early evening. Set in McCool's bar, the film kicks off with the arrival of slinky, red-sheathed femme fatale Liv Tyler. She's the sort of woman that men don't so much live for as die for. And guess what? One does. Yet the killing further fuels the passions of besotted barman Matt Dillon, waterholing lawyer Paul Reiser and investigating homicide detective John Goodman. Starting out fine as a black comedy, the film loses its way with a desperate desire to be hip, a cleverdick triple-perspective structure and a descent into unfunny farce. Michael Douglas co-produced, and cameos as a hit man with an extremely weird wig. Pluses for film buffs are the allusions to Douglas's white-collar madman role in Falling Down and to the shoot-out scene in Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino's hip thriller True Romance. This cast certainly deserves better.

Ramshackle comedy that suffers from the miscasting of Liv Tyler as a femme fatale, though there's enjoyment to be found elsewhere, notably in Douglas's toothy, bingo-playing hit-man.

Randy (Dillon) is minding the bar and his own business, when in comes Jewel (Tyler), the sort of vamp he could only... read more on Time Out

"...The director, Harald Zwart, keeps the energy up....ONE NIGHT AT MCCOOL'S packs a lot into one night..."

"...[Douglas] may be doing some of the best acting of his career....An enjoyably off-beat exercise..."

"...The real fun comes in watching Michael Douglas....He makes you laugh out loud..."