Once upon a time, Andrew Fleming co-wrote and directed DICK, an unusually smart political spoof in which two bubbly teenage girls (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams) bring down the Nixon administration. It was an distinct change of pace for the man who'd previously brought us BAD DREAMS, THREESOME and THE CRAFT, and it was especially welcome at a time when the gross-out comedy was beginning to dominate production slates at every major studio (provided they weren't jammed up with Freddie Prinze Jr./Matthew Lillard two-handers - those were the days!).

Sadly, the rest of America had no use for a retro Nixon parody in 1999 (perhaps if he'd been into chunky interns...), so when DICK grossed a total of $6 million at the domestic box office, it was off to the salt mines (i.e. TV) with Fleming. He didn't resurface with another big screen effort until the 2003 remake of THE IN-LAWS, which I paid to see out of respect for his one good movie. Ow. Another four year hiatus ensued, and I made a point to not bother with last year's poorly received NANCY DREW. Clearly, DICK was a fluke.

Well, not quite. Though far from a return to form, HAMLET 2 has enough flashes of near-inspiration to suggest that Fleming isn't entirely out of good ideas; it's just a shame that you have to endure the film's crushingly unfunny first two acts to get to the laughs. Co-written with SOUTH PARK secret weapon Pam Brady, HAMLET 2 would like to be both a scabrous attack on red state ignorance and a snide tribute to the transformative power of sheer creative bankruptcy. Mostly, though, it comes off as a mean-spirited swipe at unsophisticated small-town folk by people who were too good (i.e. lucky) to ever earn a living outside of a major media center.

This venom is new for Fleming. Whereas DICK was a good-natured ridiculing of everyone caught up in the Watergate circus (including the glory-seeking duo of Woodward and Bernstein), HAMLET 2 is a vindictive knee to the nuts of every failed performer who ever settled for a meager paycheck as a high school drama teacher. On the plus side, said drama teacher is played by Steve Coogan, who's one of the most brilliant and versatile comedians on the planet. So while Fleming and Brady are greedily scoring goals on an empty net, Coogan, as the cuckolded Tucson educator Dana Marschz, is resourceful enough to keep you emotionally invested as his character spirals downward from a depth that would drive most normal people to suicide. Obviously, the role wasn't written with an eye toward nuance, but Coogan is relentless in his attempts to find something redemptive in the defeated soul of a jackass who lives and dies on the (ever disapproving) reviews of a fourteen-year-old theater critic (who fails to see the genius in Dana's staged recreations of Hollywood blockbusters like ERIN BROCKOVICH).

What could the woefully untalented Dana possibly do to impress this pint-sized Frank Rich? Probably nothing. But when the kid suggests that Dana try writing an original work, he creates a monster: "Hamlet 2". Ostensibly a sequel to the greatest play ever written in the English language, "Hamlet 2" is really the unfocused product of Dana's pent-up daddy issues. But the only way he'll ever get it produced is through the game efforts of the displaced hispanic students who've inadvertently fallen into his unpopular drama class. Obviously, they think he's a fool at first, but he eventually wins them over by appealing to their vanity - i.e. giving them meaty roles in the production. This preferential treatment cheeses off one of Dana's longtime students (Skylar Astin of SPRING AWAKENING), so, as payback, he slips the highly inappropriate text to the school's principal (the great, undervalued Marshall Bell). When the production gets shut down, Dana finds himself thrust into the middle of a First Amendment issue (and backed up by an opportunistic ACLU firebrand played by Amy Poehler).

Most of the controversy surrounding this musical sequel to HAMLET has to do with its portrayal of Jesus Christ, who's barged his way into the narrative as the literal representation of Dana's persecution complex. Aside from his failure as a dramatist, Dana must also contend with his emotionally abusive wife (Catherine Keener), who sees nothing of value in anything he does; basically, she's only hanging around because she finds Dana's colossal ineptitude amusing. In a way, she's a stand-in for Fleming and Brady, who seem to be getting off on the earnest incompetence and/or idiocy of their characters. This points up one of the screenplay's most annoying traits: as written, Dana is a hoot because he's untalented, not because he's sincere.

It's shooting gallery satire, and it's frequently dragged down by some very rough filmmaking (Fleming's tracking-shot attempt to capture the freneticism of rehearsal is a standout botch), but Coogan's such an inventive actor that you can't help but stay with the movie through to its final act - which is where it really starts paying off. The opening night performance of "Hamlet 2" is as bizarre and wonderful as a musical about a time-traveling Danish prince - who inexplicably crosses paths with the son of God - should be. The musical numbers are particularly infectious: "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" is a bouncy, "Greased Lightning"-inspired bit of blasphemy, "Raped in the Face" is a grabber for obvious reasons, and the climactic, gay male chorus warbling of Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" (as Hamlet and Jesus set the world aright) is hysterical and oddly touching. It's one of the few moments where you feel the filmmakers trying to connect with their characters and, by extension, the audience; surprisingly, it's not too little, too late at all.

Cap it off with the best final line of any movie this year (hell, of any movie this decade), and you just might leave HAMLET 2 beaming. Welcome back (kinda), Andrew Fleming.

Faithfully submitted,

Mr. Beaks