The D Train,
directed by Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel
(R, 97 minutes)
The D Train is a subversive black comedy about the absurdities of high school reunions. Before it runs out of nerve, the film is a well-observed consideration of the pathetic dynamics of male ego and the caste-setting function of high school.
Dan Landsman (Jack Black) is an exaggerated example of the guy we all know from the Internet, the one who responds too quickly and enthusiastically to every post, who is too quick to allude to some half-remembered/half-invented shared history. As the self-appointed chairman of his high school alumni association, Dan is the guy the others pointedly fail to invite out for drinks, the one whose jokes fall flat. Dan isn't such a bad guy, and he's willing to take on a lot of the work that goes into organizing the coming 20th reunion; he's just hard to be around.
Somehow, Dan is a part of a tidy family with a patient wife (Kathryn Hahn), 14-year-old son (Russell Posner) and baby daughter. He lives in a blandly pleasant suburb and drives a subcompact. He has never been anywhere or done anything. At work he's able to keep his technophobic boss (Jeffrey Tambor) fooled, but Dan's existence is pretty negligible -- just more of this, then death.
But then Dan happens across a commercial on late-night TV and recognizes a spokesman for Banana Boat suntan lotion -- it's Oliver Lawless (James Marsden), the coolest guy in high school. Dan figures if he can get Lawless to come to the reunion, he'll be the hero who saved the event.
Lawless doesn't respond to any of the alumni committee's phone calls or emails. So Dan decides to track him down in Los Angeles, where Lawless is presumably pursuing a glamorous career.
There are a few too many moving parts in Dan's scheme (dissected by Tambor's character after things fall apart) but the movie gets a surge when Lawless shows up to escort Dan around West Hollywood for a night of debauchery.
And, as it turns out, Dan does convince him to come home for the reunion. But not before it gets weird between them.
Marsden, often bland on screen, is terrific as the embodiment of seedy cool underwritten by desperation. We know that Dan is too starstruck to notice, but Lawless is a loser, a marginal Hollywood type whose Banana Boat commercial will likely be his crowning achievement. Black is, as always, very good at playing needy and obnoxious.
Despite these watchable characters, The D Train feels like a missed opportunity, never quite funny enough or dark enough. Black and Marsden seem up for it, but the writing isn't, hampered by an erratic tone and improbable plotting.
The Blu-ray includes a gag reel, deleted scenes and a digital copy.
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Bessie (R, 113 minutes) In this straightforward and skillfully rendered HBO bio-pic, Queen Latifah plays legendary Bessie Smith during her transformation, with help from mentor Ma Rainey (Mo'Nique) from a struggling young singer into one of the most self-possessed successful recording artists of the 1920s. The music, needless to say, is terrific. With Oliver Platt, Michael Kenneth Williams, Khandi Alexander, Charles Dutton, Mike Epps; directed by Dee Rees.
Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me (PG, 116 minutes) This documentary, which aired on CNN on June 28 and is now available on DVD, follows Glen Campbell's 2011 tour of 151 sold-out shows following his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Director James Keach's tight focus on his superstar subject, Campbell's wife Kim, and his children creates a film that, while overly long, is an honest and sometimes heartbreaking revelation of the ravages of the disease on one of Arkansas' most talented and respected musicians. With appearances by Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Blake Shelton, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban and Bill Clinton.
MovieStyle on 09/04/2015