EASY DOES IT (2019) – Review

Who’s up for a road trip? I’m guessing most folks are, after being cooped up for much of this year. Well, since things aren’t quite back to normal, perhaps a cinematic one would fill the bill. Maybe a state to state jaunt would be in order, with a somewhat shady duo behind the wheel ala’ SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT or THELMA AND LOUISE, perhaps just indulging in an occasional “dine ‘n’ dash” or a “fill-up and flee”. Oh, and aside from the authorities, some roughnecks are on your trail. That’s the elements of the new comic crime caper EASY DOES IT. But with these dimwits churning up dust, nothing is ever easy (especially for the audience).

Down in Mississippi, in the down and dirty alleys and side streets, we meet the story’s two “heroes” as they try to run the old “fight scam”. Jack (Ben Matheny) and Scottie (Matthew Paul Martinez) are going to “duke it out” as the local deplorables place bets on the outcome. When a gentle tap KO’s Scottie, the crowd gets “wise. Luckily the two make a getaway, but without the moola. This upsets their boss at the “greasy spoon”, who has put in his own money. Actually it’s a loan from local crime kingpin King George (Linda Hamilton). The “fightin'” duo barely escape her enforcer “Blue Eyes” (Susan Gordon) as they return to their trailer. In the mail is a postcard from Jack’s mother in San Clemente, CA. It’s a cryptic message: “If you get this, I’m dead. But I left you something under the pier”. Ah ha, sunken treasure, no doubt thinks Jack. After another brush with Blue Eyes the next morning, Jack and Scottie hop in their beaten-up Mustang (?) to head west. But they’ve no funds, so they try to rip-off a local gas station. When that goes “sideways” they take a hostage, the timid salesman Collin (Corey Dumesnil). As the trio begins their trail of petty thievery they attract the attention of the press. Of course, the story makes it to Texas, where Chief Parker (Dwight Henry) and the strutting Officer Owen (Bryan Batt) vow to capture them. With those determined lawmen and Blue Eyes still in pursuit, can Jack, Scottie, and now Collin reach that state of sun, sand, and hidden loot?

I suppose we should begin with the biggest “name” star (as you see below, she’s a good quarter of the poster). Hamilton does give it her best effort with basically a “one-note” character. King starts out angry and continues to fume until her final fade-out. After a brief early sequence in “the vehicle” with Blue and the boys, Hamilton spends the rest of the flick growling into a princess phone while smoking a stogie and pacing about, dressed in one of Edward G. Robinson’s old suits, in a room with tacky furniture and garish purple (yech) walls. It was hoped that her return to the Terminator franchise last year would mark a new entry to interesting film roles, but this unwieldy caricature (cornrows, yeah) is beneath her. I was also familiar with one other actor, Batt who was the beloved, mush missed Salvatore in the early seasons of TV’s “Mad Men”. His role is nearly as cartoonish as he puffs out his chest, boasts of his policing skills, and sports a ‘stache that looks like the “face fur” of Ron Swanson, Thomas Magnum, and Ron Burgundy entangled in a follicle orgy. As for the flick’s main focus, Methany tries to bring a likable Harold Hill conman quality to Jack, but he often comes off as a motor-mouthed, preening, puffy (always working on a joint) dimbulb. But he’s a mastermind compared to Martinez as the hyper-active wide-eyed doofus that is Scottie. His “quirk” is yelling his lines in extreme close-up (often bragging of his Native American heritage), as he slathers latex house paint on his face (no scenes of him trying to remove the sticky, gummy stuff with a turpentine scrubbing). Things don’t pick up as the duo becomes a trio with the addition of Dumesnil as the annoyingly awkward Collin, who appears to have time-traveled from the ABC sitcom classic “Room 222” where he was a “guest star” substitute teacher trying to gain the respect of his students (and the attention of Karen Valentine’s Alice Johnson, no doubt). We’re made to think that Jack And Scottie have “loosened” him up (aided by lotsa’ weed and booze), but he remains an irritating “nerd” cliche. As for their pursuer (think a punk blonde Wile E. Coyote brandishing a Louisville slugger), Gordon fiddles with her transistor radio, hearing baseball play by play relayed by John Goodman (aping Jack Buck) and the news read by Harry Shearer (not Kent Brockman), as she glowers and slams her black leather gloves together in frustration, in an attempt to be menacing.

And who’s the ringleader of this merry band of misfits? First-time feature director Will Addison, who also co-wrote (whoa, there was a script) the film with star Methany. He straddles the line between cloying pretension as the story stops dead several times for arty little monologues that look to have been shot in 8 mm ( the picture becomes a small square in the screen’s center) in which the characters spout off about their dreams and beliefs, and forced Coen brothers-inspired zaniness with lots of jump-cuts, slo-mo, extreme close-ups, and spinning cinematography (a bit of Barry Sonnenfeld perhaps), all in an attempt to keep us interested and make the story seem “edgy’ and fresh. Epic fails on both counts. The attempts at whimsy fall flat especially in the fantasies of their “gas scams” and in the bits of “arty” animation as the buzzed trio see their bottle rockets morph into obliging ladies. And to spice it up a bit Scottie gets “nekid”. A final showdown in the desert might be a tribute to Russ Meyer, but it just reminds us that he did it with much more skill and style nearly 50 years ago. With grating characters, a witless screenplay, and clunky direction, EASY DOES IT is really hard to get through. Really hard. After 90 minutes of this road trip, the living room couch doesn’t seem so bad.

0 Out of 4

EASY DOES IT opens in select theatres and is available as a Video On Demand on most cable and satellite systems, along with many digital streaming apps and platforms