Saving Silverman

Directed by Dennis Dugan, Saving Silverman follows Jack Black’s J.D. and Steve Zahn’s Wayne as they attempt to rescue their friend (Jason Biggs’ Darren) from the manipulative, malevolent woman (Amanda Peet’s Judith) to whom he’s just gotten engaged – with the buddies’ plan to kidnap said woman taking a series of progressively disastrous twists. There’s little doubt that Saving Silverman ultimately fares best in its silly and mostly engaging opening half hour, as filmmaker Dugan, working from Hank Nelken and Greg DePaul’s screenplay, does an effective job of eliciting relatively charismatic work from the picture’s three male leads – with the passable atmosphere perpetuated by the genuine chemistry between Biggs, Black, and Zahn’s respective characters. It’s clear, that, that the movie begins its slow-but-steady descent into mediocrity with the arrival of Peet’s often unreasonably hateful figure, with the less-than-captivating atmosphere compounded by a growing emphasis on larger-than-life comedic set pieces that are, for the most part, hardly as hilarious as Duggan has obviously intended. (There is, for example, a long, tedious sequence in which Judith escapes from J.D. and Wayne’s clutches and much desperately unfunny wackiness ensues.) By the time the hopelessly ineffective finale rolls around, Saving Silverman has doubtlessly (and firmly) cemented its place as a fairly worthless endeavor that squanders the efforts of an unusually talented cast.

** out of ****