Here it is, folks: the trailer no one’s been waiting for. After a lukewarm reception at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the Patrick Dempsey/Ashley Judd bank heist/comedy “Flypaper” finally has a trailer courtesy of Yahoo.
Dempsey stars as Tripp, a man who gets stuck in the middle of two different teams of criminals trying to rob a bank at the same time. While Tripp’s life is in danger, he is more concerned with impressing Kaitlin (Judd), the cute teller with whom he is infatuated. Reviews from Sundance note that Dempsey’s character is supposedly neurotic/autistic/OCD, but the trailer doesn’t do much to convey that aspect of his character. Instead, he’s apparently doing his best attempt at slapstick. And failing.
To be fair, it does sound like the film had its fair share of setbacks. According to Dempsey in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, there were a huge number of hurdles for the production to overcome. “We had lost our director, we got slammed into a location for the bank that we didn’t like, and we had to get rid of some department heads,” says Dempsey. “But that all comes from a lack of pre-production time. It would also have been nice to have had more time to rehearse the actors.”
The real tragedy here is the wealth of talent that is being wasted. While her choices in films are questionable to say the least, even Judd is too good for a movie like this. Tim Blake Nelson, one of the most consistently impressive character actors working today, appears to be the only funny thing in the movie. Of course, Jeffrey Tambor will be wonderful as always, but, again, why this movie?! Director Rob Minkoff (“The Forbidden Kingdom” “The Haunted Mansion”) doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, but writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (“The Hangover”) might surprise us. “Flypaper” will be released by IFC Films and is set to hit theaters on August 4th. Check out the trailer after the break.
