Big Nothing

Big Nothing, a 2006 film by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, reminded me of Thomas Hobbes' quote: it's brutish, nasty, and short. It's the kind of film made by people who have seen a lot of films of it's kind, but doesn't manage to elevate itself above the conventions of the genre. It's far too clever for its own good.

David Schwimmer stars (that in itself is a warning sign--the dude doesn't have great taste in film projects) as a sad-sack writer who is forced to take a job at an Internet call-center (already this seems archaic--are there any call-centers that aren't in Bangalore?) and meets Simon Pegg. Both need money, and Pegg has an idea--they'll use server records to blackmail someone who has been to child-porn Websites.

They think they have a foolproof plan, but of course everything goes wrong. It starts with a third member, Alice Eve, and then extends to their choice of victim--a reverend. Why they would think a reverend could get his hands on $200,000 in one day is beyond me.

The caper-gone-wrong genre is long and illustrious, and Big Nothing tries its little heart out, with numerous twists and people who might be dead but aren't, but the cartoonish tone is very off-putting and unpleasant. Though the film is less than ninety minutes long it seemed longer, and I had no interest in any of the characters early on.

I liked two things about it: The songs, some of them by The Eels, create more atmosphere than the script does, and I appreciated that an FBI agent (played by John Polito) is named Chester Hymes. Chester Himes was a crime writer who most memorably wrote Cotton Comes to Harlem. That's a nice shout-out in a film that doesn't deserve his mention.