Happy, Texas 1999
I heard a lot about this one and thought it would be a gem that most people overlooked. I liked Steve Zahn a lot in Out of Sight and figured this movie would be a good way to get him more screen time. But offbeat characters like that are usually best in supporting roles and that turned out to be true here too. Though parts are funny a lot of this is just plain silly or dumb. There are some funny moments with Zahn trying to teach little girls a production number, but just as many scenes that didn’t click. A lot of “quiet funny” scenes where you think to yourself that it’s funny but it isn’t funny enough to make you laugh, like when Zahn teaches one of the few songs he knows, 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, and we join the action at 66.
There are some romantic side stories that are largely very predictable, the exception being one with William H. Macy but even that gets muddled somewhere in between funny and touching (he has a great line when ordering a steak which I’ll save at the bottom as a spoiler if you don’t think you’ll see it).
So while this may be a better than average film, and it has a good heart, I was a little unhappy with Happy, Texas.
C+
(last year I would have given it a B- or even a B but I was told I give too many B’s so I’m trying to spread out the range a little)