Review: 'Sour Grapes' unpalatable

April 24, 1998
Web posted at: 6:13 p.m. EDT (2213 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- There's a huge difference between writing for TV and writing for the movies, and over the years some very talented people have learned this the hard way.

Just check out Woody Allen's early film work, stuff like "Take the Money and Run" and "Bananas." Both films are (sporadically) downright hilarious, but they aren't exactly what you would call movies. They're more like visual representations of Allen's stand-up act, little gags strung together with only the slightest semblance of a plot or visual scheme to complement them.

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Only with "Annie Hall" did Allen finally figure out how to weave his comic ruminations into a working screenplay, with an overall sense of story-telling rhythm and legitimate character development.

So now we get "Sour Grapes," the very bad first movie from Larry David, the co-creator -- and, some say, the guiding force behind -- "Seinfeld," a little NBC hoedown that a few million people have been watching on Thursday nights for the past nine years.

'Seinfeld' strategy doesn't work here

I'm not going to get too deep into the "Seinfeld" game plan because we all understand how it works by now.

The most revolutionary thing about the show, though, is how quickly it moves. Kramer sets his hair on fire -- Elaine gets in a fight on the street -- Jerry gets into an argument with Newman -- George lies to his parents, and, before you know it, 45 seconds have gone by.

This makes sense because, if you remember, the original idea behind the show was that we were seeing the actual events in Jerry's life that lead up to the stand-up routines that bookend each episode. The writers eventually departed from this premise, but the rhythm remained.

David, whose work for Seinfeld was undeniably brilliant, evidently never bothered to consider that you can't get away with that sort of streamlined-but-meandering illogic for an entire movie, and "Sour Grapes" pays for it, big time.

Plot's a bust

Irrelevant dissections of urban minutiae are one thing if you're zapping the audience into a goofy frenzy over the course of 30 minutes, but 90 minutes of it grows supremely aggravating ... especially if your cast is not comprised of the best team of comic actors to hit TV since Mary Tyler Moore hung up her hat.

As you might expect, the plot of "Sour Grapes" is not what you would call challenging.

Steven Weber co-stars as Evan, a brain surgeon (yeah, right -- this guy was on "Wings!") who decides to go to Atlantic City one weekend with his best friend, a "wacky" tennis shoe designer named Richie (Craig Bierko, who will undoubtedly be duking it out for the worst performance of the year when I get around to considering that stuff again).

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They're both busted after a while by the gambling tables, but, before they leave the casinos, they decide to use up their last bit of change on the slot machines.

Richie eventually runs out of quarters and asks Evan if he can borrow a couple. Evan forks them over, and Richie, using his buddy's money, hits the jackpot, winning $430,000.

'Yadda-yadda-yadda'

Richie, of course, is delirious, but the relationship takes a turn for the worse when Evan starts yelling that he deserves half the money for giving him the winning coins. Then the two guys get meaner and meaner as they argue over who deserves the winnings.

I know what you're thinking. That sure sounds like a "Seinfeld" episode, and you're right, but it doesn't sound like something that can fill up a movie screen for an hour and a half. And it doesn't.

Even the most dedicated fans of "Seinfeld" readily admit that not every episode works, and this thing feels like a very long, not very good episode with extremely weak actors. It's a lot more "The Pig Man" than it is "The Puffy Shirt."

David doesn't know when to quit with the cutesy stuff. You get ruminations on how many circles should be on the sole of a tennis shoe, how many different kinds of screams there are, the difference between a "lady friend" and a "girlfriend" and on and on.

It's "yadda-yadda-yadda" but with an extra "yadda" added to pad it out to feature length.

Craig Bierko no asset

There are only two or three decent jokes in the whole thing, and the rest is endless jabbering.

Completely unrelated subplots (also a Jerry staple) touch on things like the ever-present kvetching Jewish mother and a Matt LeBlanc-sort of TV actor accidentally getting both testicles removed during surgery. Just thought you'd like to know, because I didn't.

Then there's Craig Bierko, and where did they get this guy from?! Bierko seems to feel that no line is worth delivering if it isn't worth yelling. He's continually jumping around and screaming about something, and he moves with all the subtlety of Hulk Hogan after a coffee binge.

He sort of looks like Norm McDonald, but has none of McDonald's laid-back menace, and the role is designed to be pretty menacing at times. Once again, he seems to be stuck in TV mode. This is skit acting, not movie acting, and I now have a favorite new bad actor. At least I got something out of the experience.

"Sour Grapes" contains bad language, meanness and a joke about one of the characters performing oral sex on himself that Mel Brooks would have thrown away. And that's saying something. Rated R. 91 minutes.

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