Release Date: September 1, 1999
Starring: Shawn Hatosy, Alec Baldwin, Amy Smart, Jack Ferver, George Wendt, Jonathan Brandis
Directed by: Michael Corrente
Distributed by: Miramax Films
MPAA Rating: R (pervasive teen drug use, strong language including sexual references)
"All dressed up with no place to go," is probably the best way to describe Outside Providence. Hyped as the teaming of comic talents Michael Corrente, Peter Farrelly, and Bobby Farrelly, it was expected to deliver a fresh look at the formative high school years from the trademark gross-out Farrelly Brothers perspective. But despite the involved talent and contrary to the advertising hype, Providence was not the comic success it should have been, and was very nearly a comic disaster.
It entails the life of Timothy Dunphy (Shawn Hatosy), who, after wrecking a police car in the illustrious and infamous Providence, Rhode Island, suburb of Pawtucket (director Corrente's hometown), gets shipped off to the Corwall School for Boys by his father (Alec Baldwin). It's there that the movie unfurls its main sail, the fish-out-of-water bent on a scruffy boy from a working-class family inserted into an uptight prep school. For all its efforts, though, Providence cannot provide anything new to say from this particular angle; fortunately, it manages to stay away from boring narrative pitfalls.
During his high school years (most of which pass by in about sixty to seventy minutes of ubiquitous fast-forwarding), Timothy meets a girl named Jane Weston (Amy Smart); despite being described as the coolest girl around, she falls for Tim with relatively little wooing on his part. This misstep might have actually been for the better, for the story that would have resulted from Tim trying to win Jane's heart might have been terribly cliched. Nevertheless, Jane sets out to reform Tim's errant ways, showing him how to make the grade and have a good time.
The relationship between the two is solid, but in a movie such as this it's not difficult to use selective editing techniques and a shlocky directing approach to ham up a teen romance. None of the typical dramatic structure is present, and Tim and Jane's relationship never endures any significant hardship (even the "major" falling-out between them, in which Jane is caught smoking weed and drinking in the boys' dorm and has her entry to Brown University consequently revoked, is nothing serious). Hatosy and Smart have all the right moves, but they're largely unremarkable -- just two more generic teen stars.
Alec Baldwin makes brief appearances as Tim's father, and he manages to shed a lot of the typical sinister sneer that many of his characters have been known for. He's a rather welcome presence in this otherwise ill-equipped comedy, and although he doesn't provide out-and-out laughter, he certainly does not hurt the movie's standings in the audience's minds.
An audience should not come away from this movie feeling disgusted, but they will be disappointed. Although Outside Providence has a fairly thorough sprinkling of laughter, it is just the same only a sprinkling where it should have been a smattering.
all contents © 1999 Craig Roush