HAPPY TEXAS

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: homosexuality, sexual content, language

Rated:

Boredom is when you walk through the library not really caring what you bring home so long as it is longer than an hour and a half. These cavalier visits to the shelves occasionally turn up a gem, but usually prove to be an absolute waste of time. Thus is the story of Happy Texas, a homosexual-promoting comedy that has lots of talent involved but is pointless, stupid, and insulting to your average movie connoisseur.

Chain gang prisoners are stuck with road kill duty on the wilds of Texas highways, until one errant remark lands a man a face-full of dead opossum. Chaos and bloodbath ensues, with fists and proverbial fur flying, and the three men responsible are packed into a police truck and driven back to headquarters. Or rather, in the general direction of headquarters, since the occupants haven't finished their manly disagreement yet. Rat-faced bully-wannabe Wayne (Steve Zahn) punches his beefy adversary in the face. Born Maverick Harry (Jeremy Northam) bangs on the partition to get the sheriff's attention, who swerves to miss yet another of those darned varmints on the road. The long and short of it: truck winds up turned over, prisoners escape, and still shackled together, Harry and Wayne search for a way out of the police radar.

Making off with a used RV, little do they know that the transportation's gay owners are two unhappy pageant consultants on their way to Happy, Texas. They're also not too keen on the job, and figure they should just drop off the face of the earth for awhile, maybe have a nice vacation in Miami before reporting the vehicle as stolen. Once Harry and Wayne figure out the gig, they decide to stick with it: their gay counterparts, "David" and "Steve," are making a thousand dollars while teaching pretty girls how to shimmy into barely-there bathing suits. Or so they thought. Instead, the "girls" turn out to be a gaggle of three foot monsters just out of first grade. While Wayne has his hands full with the munchkins, and their supervisor Doreen (Illeana Douglas), Harry is scoping out the nearby bank. That is, if he can keep his eyes off the owner (Ally Walker) long enough to rob it. Along the way they have several scraps, devise a fool-proof plan that goes wrong at the last minute, and ward off the advances of the closet-gay sheriff in town (William H. Macy).

What results is organized chaos with some genuinely funny moments, but longer periods of barely-there smile-time that fail to excite the interest of the audience. I checked my watch more than once, wondering how such a short film could seem so long. The general idea was good, but watching the story unfold like a poster for gay ideals rapidly became tiresome. Incidents that are wholly innocent between Wayne and Harry (err... like strangling one another) are mistaken for affection by others. The sheriff makes a play for Harry, who winds up forced into accompanying him to a gay bar, where we see males dancing with one another. They have a "lover's quarrel," and at the end, the sheriff has found happiness with a Texas Ranger. In the meantime, we're party to a lot of related jokes, a heterosexual scene in which Wayne and Doreen roll around underneath a table, and some heavy abuse of deity (a half dozen abuses of Jesus' name, along with general profanity).

For a fan girl like me, there was only one thing thing about this film: several stunning shots of Jeremy Northam that sent a nice little tremor down my spine. But I can get those same exact mind-numbing stares simply by turning on Emma. Otherwise, it's tripe.