Rating: R
Genre:
Comedy
Theatrical Release: 10/01/2004(USA
Release Date: 02/22/2005
SubTitles: English/Espanol
Dubbed: English/Espanol
Sound: DD5.1/DS
Run Time: 106 Minutes
Flags: Brief Nudity, Adult Situations, Strong Sexual Content, Adult Humor, Profanity, Slapstick Violence
Distributor/Studio: 20th Century Fox
Five years after achieving commercial and critical success with his film
Three Kings, director and screenwriter
David O. Russell returns to the more idiosyncratic territory of his earlier work with this intelligent and offbeat
comedy.
Bernard and
Vivian Jaffe (
Dustin Hoffman and
Lily Tomlin) are a married couple who run an existential detective agency where they sift through the lives of their clients in order to discover the source of their angst. The Jaffes' latest client is
Albert Markovski (
Jason Schwartzman), an environmental activist who has a very large rock and a great deal on his mind; their study of
Albert's problems lead
Bernard and
Vivian to
Brad Stand (
Jude Law), a public relations executive with a chain of successful variety stores, Huckabees. While publicly allying himself with
Albert's environmental initiatives, behind the scenes
Brad is running roughshod over responsible land management with little care for the consequences. When
Brad learns he's being watched by the Jaffes, he hopes to co-opt them by hiring them himself; however, the plan has unexpected consequences when their questioning leads
Brad's girlfriend, well-scrubbed model
Dawn (
Naomi Watts), into reassessing her life and relationships. Meanwhile,
Albert finds himself joining forces with
Tommy (
Mark Wahlberg), a firefighter and fellow environmentalist who has been having second thoughts about
Bernard and
Vivian's ideas and methods after a long-term investigation and has since fallen under the spell of nihilist poet and philosopher
Caterine Vauban (
Isabelle Huppert).
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
;)
