Southie

The Legend:
Marketing:
1.0 Never even heard of it. At least they managed to put Wahlberg on the box as big as life. Confusing people into thinking Mark Wahlberg was in it. (Actually it's Donnie)
Performances:
3.5 If you need a group of people to act like they're drunk, or getting in a fight this is your crowd.
Production Design:
 2.0 I refuse to give this film high marks here, because it was all filmed on location.
Score:
3.0 It's kinda there.
Overall Rating:
 3.0 Yawn... Is it over yet?


Note to hollywood:
If the title of your movie has a direction in it, and you're not Alfred Hitchcock, it's probably going to suck. Want proof? Allow me to offer the four corners of suck.
The Rob Reiners bomb North
East of Eden (cause seeing Rosie O'Donnel in leather is just WRONG!)
The Wild Wild West
and rounding out the suck compass is our latest addition Southie

We learn several things from this movie.

  1. Talent is not hereditary. While Mark Wahlberg is great, Donny has "The Wrong Stuff, baby"
    (sung to the New Kids tune "The Right Stuff")
  2. John Shea cannot direct.
  3. Irish mobsters are really, really stupid
Our little tribute to the Irish neighborhoods of South Boston does nothing for the tourist industry there. Our "hero" Donnie Wahlberg, strolls back into Southie, after having left, rather abruptly after a near killing while he was a drunk. He's returning from New York where he hopped on the wagon (I don't even want to question the logic of this?!) and is here to set the world right for his sister the drunk irish slut, his brother the drunk gambler, and his mother the smoking drinking heart diseased stress ridden woman. (Are you starting to see a pattern) Let's not forget his friends, the drunk Irish ne'er do wells, and his arch nemisis the drunk irish mobster wannabe. (Jesus, doesn't anybody drink water here?)

What ensues is a shallow plot where (you guessed it) because of Donnie's rocky past, he can't get work his mother's health is failing, and his ex-girlfriend won't talk to him.

After this short "build-up", what ensues are three scenes that repeat over and over again.

  1. Someone offers Donnie a drink, and he has to refuse it, showing his new found character
  2. Someone starts a fight and everyone has to jump in and break it up
  3. There's a lot of hugging, for no apparent reason other than to demonstrate the close bonds of Southie's residents
After about 50 or 60 cycles of these scenes, someone wants to kill Donnie (Hell, I wanted to kill Donnie). And what is our reformed drunk to do?

Let's just sum it up like this. By the "dramatic climax" I was laughing my ass off. When Donnie's mother dies (oh yeah, like you didn't see that coming from the moment she stepped in front of the camera) she actually is laying in someone's arms, and as she expires you hear her go "Ugggghh!"

And after all this, the end of the film is eight minutes of footage shot at an Irish pride parade. (I wonder if they were drunk, fighting and hugging.)

The Bottom Line
Is it the worse movie I've ever seen? No. Is it good? No. Should you rent it? No. I'm gonna have to treat this one like a UFO sighting. I saw something, but I'm not quite sure what it was.

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