On M List of Movie Reviews
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Maverick (1994)
Rate:
7
Viewed:
7/17
7/17:
I have never seen the TV show, but I always knew that James Garner was Bret Maverick.
The movie Maverick came out in 1994 with Mel Gibson taking James Garner's place, and I thought it was funny back then.
After seeing it again for the second time, it's still funny.
Unfortunately, it's too long. Most great comedy pictures usually run for ninety minutes, but this one
is two hours and ten minutes. That's going overboard. The biggest mistake is adding more stuff after the final play of the
Poker Championship. Had it ended right there, Maverick would've been a solid '8' picture, leaving me satisfied.
Anyway, what's with the victims of a fake Indian attack? That's another trouble: too many twists and turns for the sake of
script convolution. Just keep it simple and focus on the jokes. That's what comedy is about. Plus, who carries $1,000, let
alone $25,000, these days? That's a lot of money. $1,000 is $25,000 today, and 25 times that is over $600,000. Winning
a half million is $13 million today. Bullshit. Anybody who carried that much by then would've retired for life. They were
on average making a quarter an hour or $15 a week for 60 hours of labor. Pension for the Civil War veterans was $24 per month.
For the final hand, Maverick had two chances of winning: either Ace or Nine of Spades. After nineteen cards were pulled,
there was 2/33, or 6%, chance of winning. At the end, it looked like Annabelle was stealing from him. But the truth is:
they had a 50-50 deal, and therefore, it was her money to keep.
Mel Gibson is practically the only one providing the jokes (Graham Greene has done a good job with him) although he
makes numerous goofy faces just to keep things moving. Honestly, without Mel, there's no Maverick.
I'm not sure what James Garner is doing in the film by hanging around with the new kids on the block. When the ending
revealed he's Maverick's father, I was like, "No shit." Then again, thinking back to what happened, he
let his son be in danger of losing his life? That makes no sense.
Jodie Foster is miscast, having no knack for comedy. She isn't a great actress, either, and doesn't know how to play a
character. All Jodie Foster can do is look good and kiss Mel Gibson a lot. How wonderful...not. In case if you didn't get the
inside joke, the film was directed by Richard Donner of the Lethal Weapon franchise. When Danny Glover
and Mel Gibson were looking at each other during the bank robbery scene, they used to be Murtaugh and Riggs in another life.
It's a good moment.
All in all, Maverick is funny, but it should be forty minutes shorter.