AIN’T IT COOL NEWS REVIEW
THE BIG WHITE!!!
Hey folks, Harry here... and look... Robin Williams is in another small quality genre film. With FINAL CUT & ONE HOUR PHOTO - Robin has been taking very good parts in very small films - and doing a great job with them. Looks like he's made another great one. Actually both of these movies have great reputations and sterling word of mouth. LIONS GATE picked up THE DESCENT and I haven't yet heard a release date on that one... Meanwhile THE BIG WHITE doesn't even have a U.S. distributor yet. This is a shame, sounds fantastic!

Hi Harry and AICN staff.
Here are my last two reviews from the German FantasyFilmfest in Frankfurt and I'm not sure if you're interested or if you're going to use it because you had already some reviews of The Descent. But I'll send it to you anyway and I'll make it short this time. "The Big White"
Directed by Mark Mylod this film sets in a small village in Alaska where the financially troubled travel agent Paul (played by Robin Williams) tries to get a big insurance policy for his missing brother but it's being refused 'cause either the brother should be missed for at least seven years to be signified as dead or the dead body should be presented as a proof. 1 Million Dollars could be his big chance to leave Alaska with his wife (played by Holly Hunter) and to begin a new life in a more warm and sunny place. This chance comes when he founds a frozen dead body in a garbage container. His idea is to show this body as the corpse of his own brother and cash the 1 Mill. $. He prepares this body and let it falls down a cliff. Everything looks very cheap but the reported police comes to the result that he must be killed by a wolf.

The insurance agent played by Giovanni Ribisi is very suspicious about all that and starts to investigate and suspects that the body is not Paul's brother. All the disputes between him and Paul ends in a funny argument in the insurance company but the insurance agent can't really proof anything. Now the insurance company is not the only one who is interested in Paul and the corpse. First there are the two guys (one is played by Tim Blake Nelson and the other big guy I don't know) who hid the body in the garbage container and want the body back. They find a little piece of meat of the body in Paul's old ice box and they take Paul's wife as a hostage until they get the body back. Paul lies to them that he gets 100.000 $ from the insurance company and the two hostage-takers want the half. The only thing what Paul has to do is to get the money and take back the buried body from the graveyard after receiving the insurance money. In that whole time his wife has to spend the time with the two stupid hostage-takers and she drives them crazy.

Paul's wife suffers from the Tourette syndrome and Holly Hunter gives a hilariously and quirky performance in cursing them and repeating all kind of funny expressions in a very fast way and you can't help but laugh all the time. Here the Tourette-Syndrome is not really presented as a hard sickness but as a character element of Holly Hunter (combined with her distinctive voice!) to make her very likable. All the time when i saw her on the screen i just wanted to hug her 'cause she was so cute. She's reason enough to watch this one. After reading the newspaper that he's killed by a wolf Paul's REAL brother (played by Woody Harrelson) appears in a fucking mad mood and wants half of the money. This time Paul lies that he gets (only) 50.000$. Now the whole film is about Ribisi who tries to proof that Paul is a fraud (and tries to save his relationship with his girlfriend), Woody Harrelson who's enraged about Robin William's action and the two hostage-takers who wait for the dead corpse and are peeved about Holly Hunter and her very funny Tourette syndrome swearings. In all that between is Robin Williams who has to hurry to get the money and solve all the problems.

Robin Williams is again in his element and I'm really surprised what kind of roles he took in the past years. And I associate all the latest films with the color white. Don't ask me why but movies like Insomnia, One Hour Photo and The Big White have many settings where you see much of white. White walls, white rooms or white snow and so on. This film begins with a wide white landscape (with Holly Hunter in her pyjamas running in the snow) as Robin Williams wants to gives us a wink "Hey guys I made a film with my favourite color white again". Yeah I know it's just a coincidence and my brain is driving me crazy. I really don't know if this film is going to be succesful in the box office but i really hope so. It has few beautiful shots of the white landscape and the film reminded me a little bit on Fargo but this one had more funny and comical moments. It's a comedy with it's own fingerprint by Mark Mylod and I'm sure I'm gonna buy the DVD. I just hope this film doesn't go under like other small movies (The Machinist last year or The Simple Plan from the 90s which I recall right now). I really recommend this one and I'm sure you'll have a good time with strong performances by Holly Hunter (MUST SEE...I'd say Oscar worthy) Robin Williams and Woody Harrelson. Giovanni Ribisi and Tim Blake Nelson are perfectly casted. Ribisi and Williams are great together especially in the insurance office where they both try to proof to the director that they're right and start teasing each other. Just great!