There are no laughs to be found in writer-director Michael Traeger's would-be comedy The Amateurs, but there is one big mystery: how actors of this caliber could have been convinced to take part.
The Amateurs
United States, Germany · 2006
1h 36m
Director Michael Traeger
Starring Jeff Bridges, Lauren Graham, Ted Danson, Tim Blake Nelson
Genre Comedy
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Sex sells in America and these guys know it. The Amateurs follows a small town band of loveable losers who hit upon an idea that can make their dreams and fantasies come true. Thinking they've found the road to riches and fame they decide to make the world's most innocent adult film. Everyman's fantasy turns into a hilarious misadventure when they find they're in way over their heads.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
L.A. Weekly by Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
The Amateurs is nothing if not easy to watch. Yet, as a writer, Traeger is consternatingly adolescent and glib.
Portland Oregonian by Marc Mohan
All this star power goes for naught in Traeger's film, which tries to blend bucolic sweetness with juvenile let's-make-a-porno jokes.
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
You'll notice that the actors are way overqualified for this nonsense. But the kick they get out of one another is what pulls you in. Traeger's script does more than strain credulity, it administers multiple fractures.
The Hollywood Reporter by Sheri Linden
The film clicks briefly when capturing the silliness of XXX concerns, especially in script-development scenes. But whatever hilarity might have prevailed on the set doesn't translate to the screen. Intrusive music and last-act contrivances do nothing to lift the flat tone or allow the film to earn its intended emotional payoff.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
A sleazy, uninspired, pathetically unfunny sex farce.
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