As to feature films, Elmore Leonard, master of the cockeyed contemporary crime novel, went out at the age of 83, not with a bang or a whimper, but with a ‘Lite.’ Specifically, as one of twenty-nine (!) producers on this modest, but appealing adaptation of his 1978 novel THE SWITCH. (Leonard’s RUM PUNCH, which became JACKIE BROWN/’97 on screen, kept the pair of low-life criminals Ordell Robbie & Louis Gara, casually played here by yasiin bey & John Hawkes; less casually played in JACKIE BROWN by Samuel L. Jackson & Robert De Niro.) Yet another riff on O’Henry’s THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF, here unredeemed hostage Jennifer Aniston, as straying suburban housewife whose straying developer husband, Tim Robbins won’t put up the million bucks ransom. The well worn tropes can be greeted either with a yawn or as a welcome friend, depending on your mood, but writer/director Daniel Schechter, along with his cast, wisely lay back and don’t push. Only Will Forte’s wardrobe: too tight suits with long pointy shirt collars, shriek late-1980s fashion to forced comic effect. (And the Maryland locations don’t look anything like suburban Detroit or Woodward Ave.) But think of the film as a good common-denominator group choice.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned above, JACKIE BROWN, by general consensus the best of all Elmore Leonard adaptations. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/04/jackie-brown-1997.html
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