Nurse Betty
Gramercy, 2000
Directed by Neil LaBute

$$

Nurse Betty needed some serious doctoring.

The new dark comedy starring Rene Zellweger is too much of a mishmash. It has moments of light comedy, zany surrealism and brutal violence that -- on their own -- are enjoyable. But these elements never gel together.

Zellweger plays a small town waitress in Kansas who witnesses the grotesque murder of her Neanderthal car salesman husband. That episode leaves her so stunned she loses her sanity. Suddenly, Betty is convinced she is a character on her favorite soap opera and heads off to L.A. to find the program's handsome heart surgeon (Greg Kinnear), to whom she believes she was once engaged. I guess you're supposed to laugh at her delusion, but I just felt sorry for her.

As Betty heads West, she's pursued by the hit men who killed her husband. The duo is played by Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock and they seem to be acting in a completely different movie. Freeman is his usual, dignified, eloquent self. Chris Rock, does his Chris Rock schtick, which for some reason is never as funny in the movies as it is in his stand-up act. It's also tough to laugh with Rock after some of the terribly brutal acts his character performs. The odd-couple pairing of Freeman and Rock never quite works either.

Director Neil LaBute doesn't seem to know what kind of movie he wants to make. His previous films were critically acclaimed dark films -- In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors. This time LaBute tries to lighten the mood a bit but his effort is undone by his own shoddy craftsmanship.
(c) Copyright 2000