The Producers

The Producers (2005)

HBO On Demand, Seattle, WA

November 17, 2007

** / ****

The 2005 version of Mel Brooks’ The Producers is a claustrophobic, over-the-top affair. Fairly average in all ways the film exhausts the viewer with full-speed ahead acting, long-winded musical numbers, and an inability to escape its cramped scenery. Adapted from a Broadway musical adapted from a 1968 film this cinematic account seems little more than the stage show duplicated for the big screen, which leads to the question, “why?” The answer: sweet, sweet moolah.

Starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick as a shifty Broadway producer and a stuffed shirt public accountant, respectively, the duo concoct a scheme to produce the worst musical of all-time in hope of getting rich on the failure. What ensues from their not-so-innocent plan is the surreal antics of the odd couple and their entourage consisting of Ula (Uma Thurman), the buxom Swedish secretary, Franz Leibkind (Will Ferrell), a Hitler loving neo-Nazi pigeon trainer, a gaggle of elderly female benefactors, and a live-in family of effeminate theater types led by drag queen Roger De Bris (Gary Beach), who “keep it gay” in the funniest scene of the film. All antics lead to an inevitable stage production of Springtime for Hitler, a musical complete with goose-stepping, swastikas, and a version of the mustachioed maniac that must be seen to be believed. The black comedy sounds good on paper, but everywhere we look we find very fine actors acting rather than simply finding the characters and letting the story take it from there; maybe that works for theater but it’s not the best scenario for a feature film.

In this version of The Producers, no one is particularly a character, they’re all trying to be characters, and we’re left huffing and puffing along with them as they desperately try to escape the cramped confines of director Susan Stroman’s set. For Stroman, New York City apparently consists entirely of a couple of streets, a big fountain, and a few apartment interiors, or at least that’s all we get to see of it. At the Schubert Theater this works fine but on the screen and over the film’s two-hour run time it gets old in a hurry. It’s the cinema, damnit, free of the confines of the theater so why not expand on the Broadway blueprint and open things up a bit? That Stroman’s credits revolve almost entirely around Broadway and not the cinema is no surprise and just because her vision worked for the theater doesn’t mean it works on the big screen. By duplicating her stage show note for note on the big screen Stroman traps her actors in a way that their enjoyably loopy theater personas become too much when translated for the movies.

Kudos to the cast for trying very hard and keeping The Producers entertaining throughout even if the film can’t quite support their efforts. Special note must be made regarding Uma Thurman whose singing is very, very good, a most pleasant surprise. Unfortunately, the complete vision of this cinematic effort doesn’t quite equal the talent of its cast and leads to an average picture that fails to live up to its potential.