User talk:Robertlowe15

Why can't Zach Braff make a good film?

As John “J.D” Dorian in the hit US sitcom Scrubs, Zach Braff has won many deserved admirers. His comic timing in which ability to mix slapstick with wit mixed in with his portrayal of a man who seeks the love of his ‘mentor’ Dr. Perry Cox as a replacement for a lost father and the struggles with his masculinity in an macho, ego-driven environment.

And yet despite his obvious talent for acting, as well as directing shown by the multiple locations used in ‘My Last Chance’ to great effect; Braff seems to struggle to put in the performance on the big screen that his small screen showings suggest possible.

Now many could argue that in Braff’s two most successful film releases to date - Garden State and The Last Kiss - his characters were in no way like the affable doctor he plays in Scrubs, yet this does not excuse them for both being boring, lacking any charisma or charm and leaving the viewer quite frankly unemotionally attached to either’s fate in the film’s narrative.

In Garden State, the writer/director/actor Braff plays Andrew Largeman, an aspiring actor living in Los Angeles whose only notable costume change to date has been that a geisha and face paint required for his part time job working as waiter in a Chinese themed restaurant. The death of his disabled mother, an affliction caused by Largeman as a child, leads Braff to head back to his hometown of New Jersey for the funeral and an inevitable confrontation with his father; a doctor himself who has had him on a variety of meds since the accident that put his mother in a wheelchair.

In a story that runs slowly and seemingly a good half an hour too long, only a solid performance from Natalie Portman - whom the viewer has a more emotional attachment too - keeps you awake. To condemn matters further, his part in choosing the drab playlist that is filled with the pretentious acoustic/alternative genre just adds to the yawn factor and manages to turn the man behind one of the best sitcom characters in the last ten years into a a stereotype of the actor who suddenly wants ‘to be taken seriously’.

The Last Kiss, which was admittedly a step-up in quality albeit once again thanks to the supporting role - Casey Affleck and Tom Wilkinson especially - sees Braff take on the role of Michael, a 30 year-old architect who has the near perfect life. An architect, he has money, a nice car, a beautiful girlfriend (Jenna) who is pregnant with his child, all whilst remaining best friends with Chris, Izzy and Kenny, the guys he’s known since he was a child

Secretly feeling trapped and unsure of where his life is going, the decision to trade it all in for one night with Kim, played by Rachel Bilson, seems like an interesting plot point and yet it is the stories happening around him - supposedly to compliment his predicament - that are actually of genuine interest. Jenna’s parents are having marital difficulties; Chris (Affleck), a friend of Michael’s is having a crisis of his own in trying to deal with his over demanding wife and new-born child whilst Izzy (Michael Weston) is falling apart after having been dumped by his high school sweetheart and then his father’s death.

Apart from the comic moments involving Izzy and Kenny (Eric Christian Olsen), signs of bare flesh form Bilson and Cindy Sampson, and a wonderful speech from Wilkinson to Braff, the film is flat and again feels as a prop to portray Braff’s self-adoring personality onto a public who will excuse it thanks to the TV character people want him to actually be.

A winner at Arts & Film Festivals it may be, Braff is probably happy with his attempts at making nothing but “cult-classics”, it may be time for him to get off his high horse and come and mill around with the rest of us where he just may go and make a film worth seeing.

I certainly hope so.