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Top five topics to discuss about the new John Cusack romantic comedy High Fidelity -- the story of a rare vinyl record store owner who's obsessed with compiling "top five" lists:
1) How good is John Cusack? He's getting a little long in the tooth for these young people in love kind of movies, but no one's better at playing nice-guy underdogs. As he did in movies like Say Anything and Better Off Dead... Cusack once again finds himself in a role that allows him to exude that subtle Cusack cool. For High Fidelity, Cusack also puts on the cap of co-screenwriter and co-producer.
2) The eclectic cast. Everyone from Lisa Bonet to Lili Taylor to Catherine Zeta-Jones to Bruce Springsteen pop up. The most memorable cameo belongs to Tim Robbins, who easily gets more laughs per-screen-time than anyone else in the movie, slipping in for a few scenes as a self-help guru (it almost makes-up for his work in Mission to Mars). Among the ensemble players, the standout is Jack Black. He gets some side-splitting moments as a record store employee who lives to criticize people with bad musical taste -- it's a breakthrough role.
3) The soundtrack rocks. There are some indie-pop gems -- but how could they leave out Elvis Costello's identically titled "High Fidelity"?
4) The lack of character development -- the role of Cusack's girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) is practically a blank slate. Laura dumps Cusack in the very first scene and he spends the rest of the movie trying to win her back. But since we've never seen them as a couple, and since her character possesses no exceptional qualities, we have no reason to care whether they ever get back together.
5) The rest of the script -- which has Cusack's character revisiting past relationships -- is engaging and full of sharp observations. But the best scenes are the ones that revolve around Cusack and his buddies in the record shop, talking about music. Only those moments hit all the right notes.
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