Joe Somebody (2001)

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Joe Somebody (2001): Dir: John Pasquin / Cast: Tim Allen, Julie Bowen, James Belushi, Patrick Warburton, Hayden Panettiere: Many viewers may relate to Joe's situation. It addresses the importance of people as individuals. Tim Allen stars as an advertising executive who takes his daughter to work with him only to discover that the company bully took his parking space. When he confronts the issue he is assaulted right in front of his daughter and co-workers. The bully is suspended but Allen is unable to face work again. His boss fears a lawsuit so he assigns Julie Bowen to bring him back. She wishes to get out of her job and become a guidance counselor. He decides to meet the bully again and is trained by a former stunt person. Setup works but it never avoids formula and its ending is too obvious. Third collaboration between director John Pasquin and Allen who previously made the inventive The Santa Clause and the inexcusable Jungle 2 Jungle. Allen holds his own right up until the predictable outcome. Bowen is flat as a potential romantic prop. James Belushi as the stunt person had potential but needs better material than this. Patrick Warburton plays the ever familiar low IQ office bully. Hayden Panettiere plays Joe's daughter and the role is predictable drivel. Strong theme of self worth and violence. Too bad the screenwriter didn't train as hard as Joe. Score: 4 ½ / 10

Tim Allen is against type here as the meek Joe Scheffer, an AV worker in a giant drug company. He is divorced from his hot wife, passed over for promotions, and ignored by his boss. Then on bring-your-daughter day, he gets beaten up by the office bully Mark McKinney (Patrick Warburton) for a parking spot right in front of his daughter Natalie (Hayden Panettiere).This puts him in a depressed tailspin. Then when company wellness officer Meg Harper (Julie Bowen) ask him what he wants, he decides that he wants a rematch. In addition, James Belushi plays a martial arts teacher.It is extremely difficult to see Tim Allen casted so far against type. And he's not helping the matter with his lack of acting. The setting is the wimpiest of suburban and corporate blandness in Minnesota. There's really not much I like in this one except I am a fan of almost every actor involved. Sadly I didn't laugh once.

Tim Allen may have top billing, and his character's name in the title, but it's Hayden Panettiere as his sharp daughter that is the best thing about Joe Somebody. She played the young firecracker of a daughter to the white coach in Remember the Titans and she shows the same skill as a thoughtful and far too smart girl in this. That's not bad for a girl of eleven. The rest of the movie plays like a bad after school special with pat morals. The entire plot is about a guy being b*tch slapped in the parking lot by a co-worker, learning how to fight from a washed up action star, and finding out that he wasn't that bad of a guy to begin with. Aww. It's not a bad moral, but it's always handled as subtly as an anvil to the head. Tim Allen is a comedian, not an actor. He just doesn't have the skills to pull of some of the more emotional scenes in any of his movies. This was a poor choice for him and exposes his weak range. One thing is easy, he gives up on the fight for his daughter, and I am there with him, she is the only reason to sit through this.

Joe Somebody is one of those cookie-cutter mediocre films where we can predict the ending long before it actually happens. Not only that, but our 'hero' (Tim Allen) is unconvincingly made into a better person as the film progresses (what the hell?). He starts out as a nobody, who wants revenge on a bully who humiliated him, but becomes a somebody after proclaiming revenge and then refraining from fighting the bully. Along the way, he falls in love. (Get it? That's why they call it Joe Somebody). I think I have seen this plot line many times before, only I don't know where.Another issue with this 'comedy' that I have is that there are only two real laughs to be had: One where Joe (how American!) reveals that he has steel balls and a line where Jim Belushi says: "It was maximum punishment to watch it." (after a film called Maximum Punishment) I didn't cringe at the film, but I got nothing out of this film either. I was living in the hope that Joe would beat the hell out of the bully, but of course I knew in my heart that he wouldn't and of course, he didn't. The romance is (for me anyway) meant to be awkward, but I felt no emotion when seeing Julie Bowen and Allen interact.The acting is OK I guess, but let's face it, anyone can play Tim Allen's role as a nobody. Ditto Julie Bowen's role as the love interest and Patrick Warburton as the bully. Every time I see Tim, he's starring in a sub-par or worse film: look at Christmas with the Kranks. Shame.Overall, this is not a terrible movie, just a sub-par one. If you like predictable, half-baked, forgettable comedies, then this is for you.2/5 stars