# Bachelor, The (1999)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com

Buster Keaton's 1925 film Seven Chances is given a lifeless update in this vapid vehicle that is as grating as its two acting leads. Here, Chris O'Donnell stars as a young bachelor that is forced to quickly find a bride in order to cash in on a huge inheritance. It plays like a bad series finale of a bad television sitcom, but unfortunately it is not. A sitcom would at least have the good taste to limit itself to twenty-five minutes.

O'Donnell (Cookie's Fortune) plays Jimmie Shannon, the twenty-six-year-old owner of a billiard table manufacturer in San Francisco. Shannon narrates the beginning of the film, equating single men with wild and untamed stallions that like a wide variety of grass patches. We watch as he dumps his current filly at lunch; while, in the next booth, a curly-haired girl tells her sister that she has ended her relationship, too. The girl is a professional photographer named Ann (Renée Zellweger, One True Thing), and she immediately hits it off with Jimmie.

Their relationship progresses so easily that Jimmie and Ann even miss their one-year anniversary. That's just the kind of relationship it is. But Jimmie grows uneasy as he watches all of his single friends succumb to marriage. There's even a funny bit that intertwines clips of nervous men during a wedding bouquet toss and footage of stallions being lassoed. Eventually, Ann is the only single girl left over the age of twelve and catches a prophetic bouquet.

After three years of dating, Jimmie pops the question to Ann after a romantic dinner at The Starlight Room, but awkwardly fumbles through the proposal to his horrified girlfriend, who ditches him and runs home and reveals to her sister/roommate, `All I wanted was for him to do it right and he didn't, and that says everything.' This one line represents everything that is wrong with females today. They wait their whole lives for this moment, and if it doesn't go down like they've dreamed, they turn into wicked, vindictive shrews. Of course, Jimmie's grass-eating-stallion analogy wasn't exactly classy, either. How are we supposed to feel anything for these characters?

Jimmie's failed proposal attempt becomes an instant urban legend and results in the death of his grandfather, who we learn has amassed a $100 million fortune that will be left to Jimmie, but only if he meets the following requirements:

1. He must marry by 6:05 PM on his 30th birthday 2. He must stay married for at least ten years 3. He must live under the same roof as his wife and spend no more than one night per month apart 4. He must produce a child within five years

The catch is that he turns thirty the following day and, to make matters worse, Ann takes off for a three-week assignment in Athens. So Jimmie desperately begins proposing to every girl he has ever dated, including a cop, a student, a commodities trader and an opera singer (Mariah Carey) to no avail. And when his best friend Marco (Artie Lange, Mad TV) places a personal ad in the newspaper for brides, things begin to speed out of control.

Although the film opens promisingly with David Byrne covering Cole Porter's `Don't Fence Me In,' The Bachelor quickly becomes tedious and mundane. James Cromwell is completely wasted as a priest that follows Jimmie around waiting to perform the wedding ceremony. Hal Holbrook also has a role in the film and – get this – has a fifteen-year-old daughter. O'Donnell's character is so underdeveloped that we never learn how he came into the family's billiard business. We learn his dad was crushed when a building collapsed on him, but where is his mom?

And how does Zellweger luck into these roles where studly men are forced into professing their love for her? I half-expected a `you complete me' line to come flying out of O'Donnell's maw. But I might believe it if the girl slapped on some lipstick. The only way I can justify this is to believe that her characters are sexually deviant, but this is even a stretch. She looks like the type that complains when you're on her hair. I wanted to choke her repeatedly, but feared that could actually make her voice even raspier if I failed to finish her off. She made me wish that The Bachelor was a silent film, like Seven Chances.

I've got a much better idea for a script. Have Jimmie move in with Marco, who would divorce his wife and let Jimmie marry her in exchange for a chunk of the inheritance. Jimmie could live in a spare bedroom or the basement and impregnate Marco's gal via in-vitro fertilization, while she still technically remains Marco's gal. Then, after the baby is born and the film ends, the film can spin-off into a television sitcom where the three try to survive their cramped quarters and bitter feelings until the inheritance check is delivered.

Although The Bachelor is rated PG-13, there is one moment where someone shouts `scum-sucker,' but it was obviously dubbed over a dirtier kind of `sucker.' I think there were also a couple of `f-word' cover-ups. Parents of lip-reading children – beware. Actually, everyone should be wary of this movie.

    1:43 - PG-13 for adult languag

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