Six Wives of Henry Lefay
Posted by admin | Posted in Movies | Posted on 27-10-2010
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Product Description
After Henry Lefay is presumed dead, his daughter Barbara is left to make the funeral arrangements. But when his current wife and five exes wage a fierce power struggle over the burial, Barbara is hilariously caught in the middle. Starring Tim Allen, Elisha Cuthbert, Andie MacDowell, Jenna Elfman, and Chris Klein…. More >>
Tim Allen plays Henry LeFay, a man who never met a woman he didn’t marry. Henry is a “Crazy Eddy” type who lives in a small upstate NY town. He is on vacation in Mexico when word comes to his daughter Barbie, that he has died. Barbie, who looks like a Barbie doll, is our voice of reason during this film. The movie then goes into a flashback of Henry, married to a young girl named Autumn (same age as his daughter Barbie), is also engaged to woman who Barbie loathes from high school (3 years younger than his wife Autumn) while he is having an affair with his ex-wife. To be honest, she was wife number 2 and number 4. At one point his ex-wife is chasing Henry with a knife because during oral sex he had answered his cell phone to talk to his fiancee (while his wife was away).
At the funeral, his ex-wives have conflicting instructions, written by Henry as to his funeral arrangements. During the bickering, an African-American woman shows up at the funeral claiming she was really Henry’s first wife and that their marriage was annulled after three months. Henry’s elderly mom keeps mistaking her for the hired help. In one touching scene Barbie tries to bond with her grandmother by asking her to tell her something she never told her before. As it turns out, grandma was a woman for hire at Pearl Harbor during the war.
After the funeral (I will spare you the comic details of the funeral to prevent spoiling the film) the movie ties up loose ends in a heart warming fashion.
Normally I avoid things with cute title puns such as Joan of Arcadia, or Grey’s Anatomy, but this one was good for a laugh. Adult themes, rear nudity, drops the f-bomb very infrequently.
Rating: 4 / 5
The last Tim Allen film that no one knew about actually fared well in Crazy on the Outside (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray], so I was hoping for a sleeper hit here as it did not make any of the promotional posters or ads. It became painfully obvious why as the credits rolled.
The story follows an estranged daughter (played by Elisha Cuthbert) as she returns to her high school hometown to deal with the reported death of her father, (filled by Allen for less than 1/3 of the film) the drama of his many ex-wives, a completely mis-written ex played by Chris Klein for two scenes, play the referee of a slapstick style dysfunction between all of the quibbling ladies, and then finally the magical reappearance of her dad. The performances are as expected for a light low-brow comedy but what really detracted from it was all of this talent only getting bit parts here and there. Paz Vega gets a few funny moments, Andie MacDowell had a few heartfelt lines, but the lion’s share went to Cuthbert, who had to play the irritated daughter – and that appeared genuine because I think she didn’t like the role. They edited the scenes with an X-Files style date and location text to try and add flavor by telling the story out of sequence, it fell short.
The Blu is decent quality throughout, but falters in several test scenes of contrast/darkness, and the sound is DTS but rarely gets utilized. They threw this BD out with absolutely no supplements, some corny artwork that didn’t happen in the film, so this can only get a few stars for the level of Blu quality and the great cast (Elfman, S. Epatha Merkkerson, Eric Olsen, etc.). Maybe a renter.
Rating: 3 / 5