# Mystery Men (1999)

### reviewed by
I.D. Letterman

    MYSTERY MEN

The salt of the earth, the true guardians of our values are not the superheroes nor the high profile super-achievers but the rank and file working stiffs, the ordinary citizens. Out of their weakness and their failures they muster enough strength to rise to the challenge when the chips are down, somehow making a virtue of their weakness and extracting strength from their commonplace attributes. Mystery Men is about ordinary people who challenge themselves to heroic action: the blue collar worker with his shovel, every man who ever used a fork, every citizen who was ever enraged, everyone who farts, and every woman that was ever advised and tyranized by her father at a bowling alley. The parable of the Invisible Boy works at several levels. There are the neglected children that no one sees because no one bothers to look. At a different level there is the anonymity that strips man of his identity in the mechanized society and at a more superficial level there is the man that longs to be special but in reality is like everybody else. And then there is the set of simple maxims, the cliched standards of idealism that inspire the common man to give his best, represented by a hilarious character called `The Sphinx.'

In the opening sequence of Mystery Men we see a band of thugs raiding a group of helpless citizens, and a trio of ridiculous would be superheroes who come to the rescue attempting to foil the attack, only to be humiliated not just by superior force but by their own ineptness. While one attacks with a shovel, sometimes banging his own teammates, another throws forks at the crooks. Out of context as they have to be at the beginning of the movie, these gags are not particularly funny and you brace yourself for another of those presentations in which hectic tries to be funny and fails. But as the movie unfolds and you get to understand the characters, you begin to identify with their ineptness and their indomitable idealism. When the situation repeats itself in a different variation; an attack on the villain' s limousine, the effect is very funny indeed. Knowing that his rage is Captain Furious' only weapon you understand his frenzied but alas ineffective attack with fists, elbows, knees and feet on the roof of the car and you roll with laughter as he maniacally wrestles the hood ornament. The shovel attack and the fork missiles are now thoroughly enjoyable. If one had known then what one knows now one would have laughed heartily at the opening sequence, which is not to fault the script because there was no other way in which the characters could have been introduced.

This movie has a strong cast and many funny sequences. I have not attempted to present a technical analysis. Simply to communicate that it is a thoroughly enjoyable fable about the common man laughing at his own limitations and delusions, while celebrating his own worth. In a strange way it is a little like The Sixth Sense, in that knowing the premise is essential to the integration and enjoyment of the whole., but unlike the Sixth Sense, knowing the premise in advance can only enhance the enjoyment of Mystery Men.

    I.D. Letterman.
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