Numerootno
A story that's too fascinating to pass by...
Ezmae Chang
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Gary
The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
kramertron
It's painfully obvious that this is an indie movie. Not in a Juno/Garden State "I'm going to quirk you to death" kinda of way, but in that the story is not polished at all, there are a lot of loose ends that could have benefited from an extra scene or two, feels made for TV and is just plain blah. The idea was pretty neat, but there was absolutely no setup, and the only exposition to him wanting to get a dummy was him watching the movie at the very beginning.All that said, it had plenty of cute and enjoyable moments. The whole romantic aspect was good, and I liked Mila Jovavich's character, who was perfectly annoying. And I found Adrien Brody's character, and by extension the dummy, pretty interesting.
J. Spurlin
Steven (Adrien Brody), nearly 30 and living with his parents, sees an old Edgar Bergen movie on TV and decides to fulfill his longtime dream of becoming a ventriloquist. His beautiful unemployment counselor Lorena (Vera Farmiga) finds him work, but puts out a restraining order on him when he paints a thank-you note on her door. Later, this young mother agrees to date him anyway, but finds his bickering family, and his inexperience with women, daunting to a relationship. Steven's sister Heidi (Illeana Douglas) is a wedding planner with a drunken ex-fiancé who keeps showing up at the door. His friend Fangora (Milla Jovavich) is a pseudo-punk rocker whose sex does not prevent her from giving him terrible advice about women. The wedding of a Jewish girl, who wants Klezmer music and gets something unexpected, will become a turning point in everyone's lives.Whoa, this is bad. Greg Pritikin directs his own script, about a tenth of which is funny. The rest strains hard to give us quirky characters, wacky situations and unexpected plot twists; but we can't buy any of it. The movie becomes unrecoverable when Lorena changes her mind about the restraining order and agrees to date Steven—after he mails her a videotaped apology featuring himself and his dummy. The message on her door disturbed her, but the tape charmed her? I could almost hear Vera Farmiga's brain going "ZZZZZT!" as she tried to play this character. Their relationship grows into the least believable nerd-with-beautiful-girl scenario I've ever seen.The performances are varied. Adrien Brody recovers fairly well from playing such a pointless character. Farmiga is charming, especially considering the impossibility of her job. Jovavich, with her affected Jersey accent, never quite seems to inhabit her character. Illeana Douglas, a good actress, does a lousy job here. She doesn't seem to get what she's doing, and we can hardly blame her.This is part of a sub-genre in comedy that I dislike: one that blurs the distinction between celebrating and belittling the losers it depicts. "Napoleon Dynamite," "Waiting for Guffman" and documentaries like "American Movie" and "Gates of Heaven" all belong in this dubious category. But "Dummy" is much worse. It's as phony as it is condescending.
ElvisKnievel
Great idea, good acting, pathetic script. So ridiculously absurd that you'd have to be from another planet to think that this could ever happen. And it really is a very basic story- nothing really happens- but the chemistry between the characters is so lacking that you can't believe that there would ever be any genuine attraction between the two main characters. Even in other movies where the boring loser guy gets the hot chick, he at least has something to offer her. This movie was a complete waste of time, despite wonderful performances by most of the main characters. Illeana Douglas (Ghost World, Cape Fear, New York Stories) and Vera Farmiga (just an all around up and coming good looking film actress)were both exceptional.
jotix100
Greg Pritikin's "Dummy" kept reminding us about another film, "Napoleon Dynamite", in that both heroes of the films are kind souls that stick like sore thumbs in a society and films that are dominated by jerks and bullies. "Dummy" presents a family that doesn't appear to be too functional. Although there is a lack of eccentricity, Steven, is deemed too odd, by his sister, or the people he comes in contact with. Steven is a good soul trying to come to terms with life, in general. By deciding to become a ventriloquist, his inner self gets an outlet for expressing how he feels, but few, including his foul-mouthed friend, Fangora, understands him.When he meets the beautiful Lorena, who has processed his unemployment claim, Steven begins to chance and come out of his shell because of what he feels for the young woman who has had a hard life herself and is in need of a kind soul like Steven.The film will conquer anyone's heart because of the appealing performance of Adrien Brody. Vera Farmiga, as Lorena, fills the screen with her beauty and her common sense. Milla Jovovich is Fangora, the well intentioned friend with a motor mouth and a vocabulary to match. Ileana Douglas, Jessica Walter and Ron Leibman are seen as Steve's sister and parents respectively.No doubt Greg Pritikin will go to bigger and better things, but he is to be commended for creating a character of Steve, something one doesn't get to see much in the American cinema.
