I love drama-comedies by nature. The deft balance of weighty material and funnybone slappers very rarely works but when it does [Salo. Witchboard.] magic screams and hits you in the face.
Will Ferrell knows this. He is an icon of comedy with dramatic skills and an adorable scar on his belly. So far his jaunts into the “serious actor” world have been solid though not what his fan base [smarter than Adam Sandler’s, dumber than Wes Anderson’s] craves. They want him running around naked and drinking beer and punching old women, noble causes all but the kind of actions that get your ass typecast.
Which is why I’m glad Ferrell is being racist in a movie. Finally.
Two-Face is a project Will has gleaned to, written by X-Files alum Vince Gilligan, who has to be thrilled that his contributions to Hancock [amazing review] yielded serious box office coin despite the fact that the film is worse than child abandonment. The story is about a racist [Ferrell] who develops a split personality
after an accident of sorts. I would assume it leads to hi-jinks and the
discovery that racism isn’t awesome but only after some colorful
moments that make us laugh because they make us FEEL. Ferrell can pull it off though. Unless some pesky coloreds get in his way. Gilligan also wrote Wilder Napalm, a film that seemingly should only exist in a movie-within-a-movie joke or my weirdest sleepmares. No man is an island, even Gilligan, so renown producer Mark Johnson and Jimmy Miller are on board to steer the project through the troubling waters of Hollywood filmmaking and to offset any comparisons to Vic Morrow’s method performance in Twilight Zone: The Movie.
One thing, don’t get attached to this title or Regarding Hitler. here’s no way they’re going to keep Two-Face as a title for fear of incurring Tommy Lee Eckhart’s wraths.