Movie: Flypaper (2011)

Flypaper poster

As a bank is about to shut down for the weekend, it is held up by two different robbery crews. One crew (played by Mekhi Phifer, John Ventimiglia, and Matt Ryan) is lean, efficient, and plans to go for the vault while at the same time a couple of hillbillies calling themselves “Peanut Butter & Jelly” (Tim Blake Nelson and Pruitt Taylor Vince) aim to get the money out of the ATMs by using weapons-grade plastic explosives they bought off the Internet. Caught in the middle are the bank employees and Trip (Patrick Dempsey), a neurotic customer who believes there’s more going on than just two concurrent bank robberies. While each robbery crew runs into difficulties in their respective heists, Trip runs around trying to piece together a conspiracy he sees at the heart of this unlikely coincidence of dual robberies. Why does he care so much about solving the mystery? Because he’s neurotic and wants to solve the mystery and that’s about as much as Flypaper cares to explain its lead character. Director Rob Minkoff throws as much madcap comic energy as he can at the film in order to give it a pulse and an identity, but it never amounts to much. He gives away the “twists” the movie is planning through the animated opening titles and so the audience spends half the film waiting for matters to go south. But even knowing the arc of the movie wouldn’t be so bad if Flypaper didn’t turn its creative premise into something so painfully derivative. Watch Flypaper online has nothing clever in the way of plotting, the special effects are laughably terrible, and the neurosis of Dempsey’s character never goes beyond talking fast and observing everything. There are some ridiculously handsome actors in Hollywood who can kill at wacky comedy. Brad Pitt did it in Burn After Reading. George Clooney did it in O Brother, Where Art Thou? Matt Damon did it in The Informant! But Dempsey lacks that spark of personality. He’s a handsome guy with a winning smile but there’s nothing bizarre or outlandish about him. Watching Trip run around the bank, I didn’t see a character as much as I saw a hyperactive Patrick Dempsey who had a five-o-clock shadow and was really good at math.

“A man caught in the middle of two simultaneous robberies at the same bank desperately tries to protect the teller with whom he’s secretly in love.”

  • Director: Rob Minkoff
  • Writer: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
  • Release Date: 4 August 2011 (Netherlands)
  • Country: Germany / USA
  • Language: English
  • Genre: Comedy / Crime
  • Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Ashley Judd, Jeffrey Tambor, Tim Blake Nelson, Mekhi Phifer, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Curtis Armstrong, Octavia Spencer, Rob Huebel, John Ventimiglia, Matt Ryan, Beau Brasso, Adrian Martinez, Monica Acosta, James DuMont

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