#34 | March 26 - 31, 1998  

Gee whiz, I'd sure like to apologize for all the errors in the film listings in recent issues, but with all the last minute cancellations, what's a poor kino fellow to do? I myself was caught off guard Sunday afternoon as I sat down to watch Burn, Hollywood, Burn. (I wasn't happy to be doing so, mind you; I was merely fulfilling my duty to all you folks out there in TV land. You are in TV land, aren't you?).

After an excessively long and extremely unpleasant trailer for As Good as It Gets (now a double Oscar winner), what should appear on screen but the faux-metal riffs and rocky coast tracking shot of I Know What You Did Last Summer. This is the best part of the movie, but I certainly didn't need to see it again. About the only thing worse than the certainty that the movie you're about to see is going to suck is getting there and being made to watch a shite film you've already seen instead. Ten minutes of bad acting was more than enough to tell me that this is definitely not a movie that gets better the second time around, so I bolted. I did at least get to go home early.

As it stands now, I'm so uncertain as to what will be playing at the American House this week that I've been reduced to reviewing perhaps the lamest movie to come to town since Evita. That is, The Borrowers, now playing at the recently renovated Khudozhestvenny, Barrikady, and coming soon to the Dome. Like the ill-fated The Babe before it, this attempt to establish John Goodman as a leading man is missing several vital organs. Unfortunately for audiences this latest effort is not even an amusing failure.

Which is a shame, because this is supposed to be a comedy. The sad truth is that John Goodman cannot carry a film on his own. The Coen brothers realized this years ago, but for some reason the rest of Hollywood finds it necessary to spend several million bucks every few years in order to reaffirm this seemingly simple bit of data. (Expect similar results from Blues Brothers 2000. What a shame Chris Farley wasn't pegged to fill in for Belushi; he at least paid the right set of dues. But Tommy Boy now rests eternal in a van down by the river, so the world will never know what kind of Blues brother he might have been.)

"Witless" is a term that professional movie critics are apt to throw around a bit too freely, but this one-word dismissal perfectly describes The Borrowers. Imagine if the makers of Ghost Dad, for their follow-up project, had decided to do something in the spirit of Home Alone, Honey I Shrunk the Kids!, and The Indian in the Cupboard. Yes, it really is that bad.

I remember I once leafed through the pretentiously British Halliwell's film guide, which dismissed Better off Dead, one of the undeniable classics of 80s teen farce (something even snidely Jacques freely admits), with "Kids deserve better than this." This is undoubtedly true of most kiddie movies, but it is unfair to so describe Steve Holland's masterpieceÑespecially since Better off Dead was not a kid flick.

But more so even than the Disney oeuvre, which is full of tidbits that are supposed to appeal to adult audiences (thereby making it easier for kids to convince their parents to drag them to see dreck like Hercules), The Borrowers was made with only children in mind. As such, it is a telling example of just how lobotomized Hollywood assumes today's youngsters to be. In addition to cutesy dialogue, an insultingly uninteresting villain, and contrivedly timeless sets, there's product-placement worm sign the likes of which god has never seen. In fact, if a kid of mine claimed to enjoy this film, I'd probably be tempted to have a go at the little tike's frontal lobe with a blender myself. It couldn't possibly make things any worse.

To get down to business, the titular borrowers are an inbred'n'unattractive race of miniature Britons with curly red hair who live inside the walls of the homes of law-abiding humans. I personally found this utterly terrifying. At least cockroaches have some self-respect and you can generally come to a mutually acceptable agreement. Smash a few of the little critters to bits and leave their guts lying around in plain view whenever you catch them overstepping the boundaries, and pretty soon they know to stay the hell out of your jam jar and away from your bedroom. But just knowing that I might encounter a sniveling, ugly little Brit hiding among my spice jars would probably drive me to undertake the unpleasant task of moving.

Still, I know in my heart of hearts (and history has demonstrated) that appeasement not only does not work, it is morally wrong. Precisely such a lack of courage was responsible for the development of the British Empire in the first place. Just ask India. If they had it all to do over again, no doubt they would put their foot down at the first intrusion rather than continually moving on to unpolluted but less desirable real estate. So don't let this happen to you if a colony of borrowers shows up in your podyezd.

And don't be taken in by the sophomorically specious arguments that are so typical of homely Brits in full-on colonization mode. Borrower, you see, is a misnomer. In reality, they are thieves or, at best, parasites. Whenever the home's legal residents go out, the little bastards brazenly sneak out to grab whatever is not tied downÑfresh alkaline batteries to power their crude miniature illumination systems (if they had any real sense, they'd simply tap into the home's wiring), essential pieces of carpeting and fabric to add their hideously unfashionable wardrobes, and premium brand ice cream to satisfy their voracious appetites.

Like the so-called robber barons of contemporary Russia, these wannabe rodents are unwilling or unable to produce anything themselves, and they certainly don't ever return anything they have "borrowed." Yet the carrot-topped freaks will protest until their dying breath if you so much as try to refer to them as thieves. "We're not criminals; we only borrow," they implore, their buck teeth and purposefully "goofy" hairdos meant to appeal to the unsuspecting homeowner's sense of pity. And these shameless machinations find success with shocking regularity.

The diminutive humanoids can be incredibly wily and resourceful when cornered, it must be said. This makes catching and exterminating them extremely difficult. Fortunately, they present an easily exploited Achilles' heel in their prideful insistence on being called borrowers rather than some more appropriate name. Thus, your best bet is to work in teams of two; while one stays in hiding, the other engages the little "person" in a heated discussion of the nature of ownership, usage, borrowing, and theft (there's nothing an unattractive Brit of limited stature likes more than a philosophical argument). This will make it all to easy for the second person to sneak up and liquidate the fucker. If it is a quick, painless death you seek to inflict, a book or heavy-soled shoe will suffice; impaling him with a metal hairbrush or shattering an expendable glass vessel on top of him will draw things out a bit. [Editors' note: In its new capacity as Moscow's official "street-smart alternative voice," the eXile does not actively encourage, support, or condone nonconsenting sadism in any form.]

H'm. Now that I think about it, I guess The Borrowers might be of some value, regardless of how unbearable it is as cinema. If this movie encourages just one mild-mannered family to put a stop to this latest round of British expansionism, it will have earned its place in the annals of human history.