Last time we updated you on Joe Carnahan’s troubled “Stretch,” which Universal dropped from its slate in January, we had several short clips, each under a minute, and it was hard to get a read on whether the Patrick Wilson, Chris Pine and Ed Helms-starring comedy thriller deserved to get the axe. Today, several more clips and deleted scenes bring the caper’s goofy, sometimes disorienting tone into focus, and reveal cameos by David Hasselhoff and Shaun White.
“Stretch” follows Wilson as a limo driver who gets roped into a night of insanity, fueled by the ridiculous requests of his eccentric billionaire employer (Pine). These new clips are the first real look we’ve had at Pine in his character’s cavemanish getup, and it’s certainly a departure from anything we’ve seen him do before. It seems like the acting is solid all around, but the question is whether it will hang together. One scene involving a severed penis is surprisingly deadpan, and, well, that kind of thing isn’t easy to pull off. We also get a look at an enraged Hasselhoff and at Helms teaching White how to skateboard with aplomb. Let’s just hope that, when it comes out on VOD next month, we have as much fun watching as it looks like the actors did performing in a few crack-up outtakes.
Suspicious as the distribution crisis might have made us, we’ll bank on Carnahan’s track record with films like “The Grey” and “Narc” and reserve judgment until we see it.
