"Guilty of Mediocrity"
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What You Need To Know:
The combined talents of Jeff Daniels and Michael Richards don’t produce even half the laughs as one Jim Carrey. Once the plot is set up, there is not an expectation on behalf of the viewer to see what comic elements will transpire next, but rather a desire to see the movie end. Telling the truth and being honest is a good lesson to learn whether you are a lawyer or a common man. With only occasional laughs, some foul language and some slapstick violence, this comedy is guilty of mediocrity.
Content:
(Pa, B, LL, V, S, N, A, D, M) Pagan worldview with some moral elements of telling the truth; 16 obscenities & 6 profanities; mild violence including slapstick violence such as falls, one brief punching scene & man gets aggression out by shooting old toilets with a shotgun; implied fornication; upper male nudity, image of blow-up sex doll & women covers her naked body with sheet; alcohol use; smoking; and, miscellaneous immorality including lying & vomiting
More Detail:
After the fantasy elements and mad antics of Jim Carrey in LIAR, LIAR, TRIAL AND ERROR will be a hard sell since it contains B-level stars and a similar theme of telling the truth in and outside of the courtroom. With only occasional laughs, the ruling on this comedy is that it is guilty on charges of mediocrity.
Jeff Daniels, who paired with Jim Carrey in DUMB AND DUMBER, stars as Charlie Tuttle, an attorney on the verge of great success and an impending marriage. His fiancee is not impressed by his best friend and best man, played by Michael Richards of Kramer fame, a semi-successful actor. When (Richards) takes Charlie out to Nevada to throw him a bachelor’s party, Charlie unexpectedly winds up bruised and battered, the victim of a bar fight.
The next day, Charlie is supposed to defend a known extortioner at a deposition, but he is too sore and too drugged to take the case. Hoping to help, (Richards) pretends to be Charlie and goes to court to meet the client and the prosecuting attorney, a leggy, young, blond woman. Charlie becomes enraged when he finds out he was misrepresented by (Richards). The movie quickly glosses over the possibility of Charlie correcting his friend’s error by stating he is the real Charlie, and the remainder of the movie involves Charlie walking (Richards) through the case with low-brow comic effect.
The combined talents of Jeff Daniels and Michael (Richards) don’t produce even half the laughs as one Jim Carrey. Richard’s performance seems to be a watered down Kramer, and Daniels merely acts exasperated. Once the plot is set up, there is not an expectation on behalf of the viewer to see what comic elements will transpire next, but rather a desire to see the trial and the movie end. There is brilliant physical comedy, and there is mere physical comedy including pratfalls and stumbles. This movie seems to be made on a shoe-string budget.
Telling the truth and being honest is a good lesson to learn whether you are a lawyer or an ordinary citizen. It is ironic that two movies of such similar themes would be released so close to each other. LIAR, LIAR is the superior movie, but is marred by many obscenities and some strong sexual content. TRIAL AND ERROR seems to be a little cleaner, but not as entertaining. It loses a great deal of credibility when (Richards) falls in love with the prosecuting attorney of the major case presented in the story. Through the whole movie, the prosecuting attorney shamed and scorned Richard, but at the end, she embraces him. Movie logic certainly doesn’t follow real life, and TRIAL AND ERROR is guilty of poor logic and poor entertainment.
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