Drowning Mona (2000)

Best movie of this year hands down!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This movie hasn't received the recognition it deserves. By far my favorite movie ever.

This movie is great. It's full of stars, many before their prime. Three Dog Night allover the soundtrack. Sukie and the diner owner's sister from the Gilmore Girls pops up for a moment. The girl from Studio 54. Ben Affleck's little brother. Bette Midler who was the queen of the beloved plays a disgusting person. Danny DeVitto who normally plays disgusting is a pretty good dude. The support cast is packed full of recognizable character actors. The story is compelling. The plot is convoluted, filled with flashbacks. Yugos everywhere. The product placement is so blatant its funny in and of itself. I really appreciate how thy dare to make most of the Characters such terrible people.

Any movie that kills off Bette Midler in the first reel can't be all bad. Unfortunately, "Laws of Gravity" director Nick Gomez's "Drowning Mona" makes the fatal mistake of letting her abrasive mommie dearest villainess encore in the flashbacks. Bette has seen better days and better movies, such as "The Rose" and "Ruthless People." Nevertheless, this low-brow, blue-collar, white-trash whodunit looks like a soggy retread of Billy Crystal's "Throw Momma From the Train," also starring Danny DeVito, where veteran battle axe actress Anne Ramsey took top honors as a malicious mom. Appreciating the tacky humor in this cheesy comedy requires an abysmal lack of taste."Be Cool" scenarist Peter Steinfeld scrapes the bottom of the barrel for buffoonery. The antics that unfold after a town of clueless cretins realizes that Mona Dearly didn't commit suicide when she plunged her automobile, a Yugo, into the Hudson River are mind-numbingly moronic. The town's lesbian mechanic, Lucinda (Kathleen Wihoite of "Nurse Betty"), shows Police Chief Wyatt Rush (Danny DeVito of "The Rainmaker") that somebody tampered with Mona's brakes. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Mona's murder was a mistake or who tops the list as the prime suspect. Needlessly, Steinfeld complicates this murder mystery the same way that Agatha Christie did "Murder on the Orient Express." Chief Rash's problem is that everybody in the small Hudson Valley hamlet of Verplanck, New York, hated Mona. Even his own daughter, Ellen (Neve Campbell of "Wild Things"), implicates herself when she sings "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead!" Few of "Mona's" characters, except for Devito's amiable but pint-sized Andy of Mayberry cop, rate any sympathy. First, Mona herself is as obnoxious as an ogre. She chopped off the hand of her own son, Jeff (Marcus Thomas of "Cowboy Up"), when he tried to take a swig of her beer! Rumors about how Jeff lost his hand will either horrify you or have you howling in hilarious agony. Second, Jeff deserved his misfortune. As a partner in a local landscaping outfit, he sabotaged it by running their lawn mower over a customer's pet pooch. No, they don't show the poor dog getting ground down. Third, fearing the wrath of Mona, Jeff's wimpy partner, Bobby Calzone (Casey Affleck of "Gone, Baby, Gone"), doesn't have the guts to fire him. Fourth, Mona's own adulterous hubby, Phil Dearly (William Fichtner of "Armageddon"), complains about spousal abuse. In a cartoonish fit of rage, Mona brains him with a frying pan when she learns about his extramarital affair with a slutty waitress, Rona Mace (Jamie Lee Curtis of "Halloween"), at the local diner. Later, we learn that Rona has been banging Jeff, too! Nick Gomez, who also helmed "New Jersey Drive," lacks the knack for comedy. "Drowning Mona" tanks a quality cast as quickly as a Yugo can sink. The best joke here is that Verplanck, New York, served as a test market for Yugos, so everybody tools around in them, even the cops! Despite all its stars, "Downing Mona" deserves only one star for its rating.

Maybe Danny DeVito and Bette Midler should collaborate more often. The two times they did it was comedy gold. While this movie is not as flat out hilarious as "Ruthless People," it should still be enjoyed by the same people who love that movie. It starts with a prologue stating how Verplanck, New York was the location where they decided to launch the Yugo line of cars in America. As a result, everyone in town, including the police, drives a Yugo car, and they all have catchy license plates like UGOMONA, ELLEEE, and OH RONE.As the title suggests, this black little whodunit concerns who opted to rid the small town of Verplanck of its nastiest inhabitant, the matriarchal hag Mona Dearly (Midler, who chews up every inch of the screen in her "Rashomon"-esque flashback scenes). Police Chief Wyatt Rash (Danny DeVito, playing against type as the straight man), is determined to find out, even if nobody else cares to help. It's come at a bad time, because he's trying to help his daughter Ellie (Neve Campbell) plan her big wedding to mild-mannered land-scaper Bobby Calzone (Casey Affleck), who has just ended up short-handed after his beer-guzzling partner Jeff Dearly (Marcus Thomas, the epitome of slackerdom) takes a leave of absence. Bobby also seems unnaturally concerned with the the death of a woman who meant only bad things for him.The characters, while bordering on cartoons, are played tongue-in-cheek, and you know the actors had fun doing it. There's the chain-smoking waitress Rhona Mace (Jamie Lee Curtis), who's having an affair with the deceased's husband Phil (William Fichtner, who walks away with the movie as a complete scumbag), and Bobby's overbearing brother Murph (Mark Pellegrino). The cops are just as zany, with Peter Coyote as the do-gooder lieutenant, and Paul Ben-Victor and Paul Schulze (Ryan Chapelle from "24") as a couple of bumbling idiots who seem to be good for one thing, looking out for Numbers One. There's Katherine Wilhoite as Lucinda, the lesbian folk-singer mechanic, and the great Tracey Walter is on board as the local fisherman who nobody really knows much about. Add in a foul-mouthed, alcoholic priest, and a funeral director who's also an amateur pornographer (Will Ferrell before he became huge), and it's a feast for those with a twisted sense of humor.