Zachary FenellBlack Sheep
February 6th 2009 18:11
Black Sheep, 2007
SNEAK-PREVIEW UPDATE: You'll be getting another post from me this evening for the opening night of Coraline. Subscribe to the email updates to get a notice for every review and post!
Let me get this out of the way: Black Sheep has absolutely NOTHING to do with Chris Farley or "Tommy Boy". It's a totally different movie. See? It actually has SHEEP in it.
Lots and lots of sheep.
When I sat down to watch this, I was stuck on a moment where I really had to decide if I was going to hold out until Monday and list it under "horror" or if I was going to go for a more light-hearted Friday column. Then I got through the first few minutes and started thinking, "Definitely Friday."
I've got to get this out of the way, too: Black Sheep is frikkin' hilarious. I wanted to shoot milk out of my nose, and I don't drink milk. It was classy while also being totally irreverent (you have to admire a script that, despite all potential, never once uses the term "sheep-f***er"), the special effects (done by the same house that did Lord of the Rings, by the way) were effective without being over-done, and the play of stereotypes was not so rigid as to get in the way of a rollicking good story.
The story is not terribly deep, but it doesn't have to be. This is marketing very appropriately as a "black comedy", and the horror-type elements are used to perfectly humorous effect. There's even one scene that uses the ubiquitous Wilhelm Scream. We watched the unrated version, and I'm pleased to announce that the additional elements were not for the sake of gratuitous violence - every action had a purpose to the plot.
I'd love to share some of the quotes and set-ups, but that might be doing you a disservice. The cornerstone of successful comedy is timing, and I can't think of a single point of delivery that wasn't done beautifully well and with the appropriate emotion. I don't think I've had this much fun watching a movie in a really long time. It wasn't so over the top as to be Zucker-esque, but it is definitely going into our catalogue as a go-to comedy for after the kids definitely very much in bed. (As in, there is no part of this that is kid-friendly.)
Black Sheep was a blast and managed to be exactly what was intended. The production values put this well above the normal B-flick fare, and we really appreciate that.
4 Stars
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Comment by Michelle Sweeney
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