Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
Man I should’ve ejected this DVD the minute I put it in the player. This movie ‘Ten Inch Hero’ with it’s overly bright colors and its stock Southern California locale and generically good looking cast playing cut-outs of real people talking in a crazy cool way that nobody I know talks like could in no way, shape or form be a movie that I could possibly enjoy. Man I should’ve ejected the DVD the minute I put it in the DVD player because the more I watched this glorified extended episode of ‘Gossip Girl’ full of pretty white kids and their problems, the more I was drawn into this nonsense.
Our film starts watching the lovely Elisabeth Harnois, who we must show love to since she was born in Detroit, as the character of Piper apparently stalking a young father and his daughter for reasons which we will find out soon enough. In the meantime Piper needs a job and sees a 'Help Wanted' sign down at the local deli shop run by some dude calling himself Trucker (John Doe), and once she passes their silly test they give her, Piper is now gainfully employed. Soon Piper becomes fast friends with her fellow employees which include Tish (Daneel Harris) the whore, Jen (Clea Duvall) the nerd and Priestly (Jensen Ackles) the freak.
You see these crazy kids are just trying to find their way. Sure Tish might be a bit of a whore, but she’s really just a girl trying to find the right man can who bring it properly every single night. Jen also wants love and has found her soul mate in her online chat buddy, but because of her low self-image issues, she’s hesitant to meet her soul mate. Despite his numerous tats and piercings, Priestly is probably the most normal of the crew though for some reason he’s in love with Tish the whore, which I guess is somewhat understandable since she is HOT AS HELL. Old man Trucker just wants to share love with the Earth woman Zoe (Alice Krige) who has some silly little shop across the street and then there’s Piper. Piper is looking for the child she gave up for adoption as a teenager and is convinced beyond a doubt that she has found this child in 8 year old Julia (Adiar Tishler) and has wormed her way into the lives of Julia and her father Noah (Sean Patrick Flannery), with them completely oblivious to her real intentions which quite honestly, no one on earth, including Piper, knows what those intentions could possibly be.
So all of these attractive people and all of there relatively simple desires run into a few snags here and there, but not unlike one of those Southern California teenage shows that the movie seems to be emulating somewhat, despite the fact that almost all of the cast is in their thirties though they really do look much younger, I’m a thinking that everything is going to work out for EVERYBODY in the end in some way. That’s just what I’m thinking.
This here movie ‘Ten Inch Hero’ is a little odd in a way because it kind of plays out like perhaps an older kid ‘tween’ type movie since there is really no profanity, has the brightest sunny cinematography you’ll ever see, and of course our attractive and genial characters. There’s a little sexy talk early on but nothing you won’t find in any prime time TV show and once we meet the precocious kid looking all bubbly and sweet this movie is looking like something that could play on the Disney Channel or ABC Family at worst. Then without warning we see actress Daneel Harris buck-assed naked going cowgirl on some dude which pretty much sinks it for the ABC Family angle I was looking at. Now I’m the last guy to try to excise gratuitous nudity out of any production but somehow, at the time, this just seemed out of place. Then we have another character who apparently had never masturbated before and needed her friends, I think, to show her how it’s done while they stand outside the door while does this thing, to make sure she does it right I suppose. This is an event which I used to think was a kind of a personal thing, at least until somebody introduced the term ‘circle jerk’ to me. There was just a real strange mix of things going on in this movie is all I’m saying.
Truthfully speaking none of the characters in this movie rarely rise above being anything other than a caricature with the exception of Clea Duvall’s character who does manage to take low self-esteem to another level, the dialog doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard coming out of anybodies mouth before, but then I don’t know a lot of Pretty White Kids With Problems so take that with a big ol’ grain of salt and I’ve read fairy tales that have had sadder endings than the conclusions this movie had concocted to close it itself out with.
But DAMMIT ALL TO HELL… I liked this movie. And I don’t even know why. Perhaps because the colors are so bright and fluffy it just put my mind at ease or maybe because David Mackay’s direction is so breezily effortless that he somehow tranquilized all of my outer stress and my normal critical sensibilities, sensibilities which I don’t even possess in the first place. Maybe it was Sean Patrick Flannery’s amazing hair-do or Elisabeth Harnois pushing thirty and still looking like an adorable 12 year old or maybe it’s as simple as watching Daneel Harris go cowgirl on that dude. I don’t know why… I wish I knew why… but I did enjoy watching ‘Ten Inch Hero’. I should’ve ejected the DVD the minute I put it in the player.
