Susan Granger’s review of “WHATEVER IT TAKES” (Columbia Pictures)
Screenwriter Mark Schwahn updates “Cyrano de Bergerac” in this stereotypical teenybopper comedy that’s so stupid, crass, even misogynistic, that it’s insulting to the vulnerable audience for whom it’s intended. And, for his cast, director David Raynr has recruited TV stars whose generic personas can barely fill the big screen. Shane West of “Once and Again” plays a nerdy, sensitive Gilmore High School senior who lends his poetic ability to the hunky jock – that’s James Franco (“Freaks and Geeks”) – who’s smitten with West’s next-door neighbor, Marla Sokoloff (“The Practice”). In turn, Franco helps West score with his cousin, the bra-less, bodacious Jodi Lyn O’Keefe (“Nash Bridges”). And, of course, the senior prom’s just around the corner. What’s inevitable is that West will realize that his true soul-mate is his best-friend Sokoloff and vice versa but it takes 92 excruciating minutes to get there. Not that I don’t like teen comedies – but let’s go back to the John Hughes’ “Breakfast Club,” “Pretty in Pink,” genre, where at least the actors had some charm. The only attempt at cleverness comes when the accordion-playing West does a riff on Tom Cruise’s “Risky Business” lip-sync, dressed in boxer shorts and a cowboy hat. Then there’s Julia Sweeney, as West’s mother/school nurse, delivering a guaranteed giggle with a safe-sex demonstration. And as an alum of Beverly Hills High School, I was surprised to see that its famous hydraulically retractable dance-floor over the Olympic-sized swimming pool is still in good working order, as shown in the perverse “Titanic Dreams” prom finale. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Whatever It Takes” flunks with a 3. Well, duh!
