Film Reviews

The Producers

• Rating:
• Director: Susan Stroman
• Starring: Matthew Broderick
• Details: Details US, 134mins, PG.

Max Bialystock (Lane) is a Broadway producer whose shows close on opening night. Hitless, Max is forced to sleep with elderly women to finance his shows, but when neurotic accountant Leo Bloom (Broderick) informs him that he could make more money from a flop that he could with a hit, Max gets an idea - get huge financial backing, put on the worst show Broadway has ever seen, make sure it closes on opening night, and trouser the money. Choosing the play 'Springtime for Hitler' by Nazi sympathiser Franz Leibkin (Ferrell) and picking the camp, flamboyant Roger De Bris to direct, the pair sit back and wait to collect. But will the show be a surprise hit? The Producers has enjoyed a successful run on Broadway recently and most of the cast return for this adaptation. Broderick and Lane obviously take pleasure in their roles and even though everyone involved hams it up, their OTT performances seem somewhat out of place. Like Bialystock, Mel Brooks hasn't had a hit in ages and this trend won't change with this movie adaptation of a musical adaptation of the movie (get that?). Originally released in 1968, The Producers was a brave move, with the Holocaust still very much recent news, but this remake fails to update the comedy and bad gay jokes are dragged out from the land that time (and humour) forgot. Break a leg, Mel. No, seriously, etc...

Review by Gavin Burke