The Chaperone
R
Something strange is going on at WWE Films: The movie arm of World Wrestling Entertainment started out by making testosterone-fueled action and horror movies designed to showcase the physical strengths of its wrestler/actors as much as their often questionable abilities as thespians. But in the last six months or so, the company has switched gears, taking its stars out of their comfort zones and putting them in inspirational sports dramas (Legendary) and low-brow comedies (Knucklehead) that only sporadically call on their body-slamming and suplexing talents. That trend continues with The Chaperone, an awkward showcase for wrestling star Triple H (aka Paul Levesque), positioned somewhere between rudimentary thriller and family comedy, succeeding at neither. It most resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger movies like Twinsand Kindergarten Cop, efforts to introduce the action star to a more diverse audience while still providing opportunities for him to kick the crap out of some generic bad guys.
Schwarzenegger always came off as uncomfortable in those movies, and Levesque too seems a little out of place here, although he's really not a bad actor. He plays Ray Bradstone, a former criminal fresh off a seven-year stint in prison for being the getaway driver on a bank robbery. Ray's spent his time in prison studying a self-help program popularized by a motherly radio personality, and he's ready to turn his life around. Unfortunately for him, his ex-wife Lynne (Annabeth Gish) and teenage daughter Sally (Ariel Winter) want nothing to do with him, shutting him out when he shows up at their doorstep looking for a fresh start. Instead, Ray finds himself drawn back into the world of his former associates, with the sleazeball (Kevin Corrigan) who set Ray up for the fall on their last job roping him in to being the driver on a new bank hit.
Conveniently, the bank is right across the street from Ray's daughter's school, and so when he has a last-minute crisis of conscience, it's just a quick jaunt over to the bus taking Sally and her classmates on a field trip. Ray jumps aboard and decides that to win his daughter back, he must become ... the chaperone. The sentiment is as cheesy as the contrived set-up that places Ray's cohorts' ill-gotten money on the bus, thus setting them on his trail and ruining his potential bonding moments with Sally.
Of course Ray is going to reconcile with his family, and of course he's going to thwart the bad guys -- the only point of a movie like this is how it gets there. The Chaperone sets up half-hearted comic set pieces (the movie's idea of hilarity is one of Sally's classmates getting botched lip enhancements) interspersed with lackluster action sequences, making its execution just as listless as its premise. Levesque may be impressive to watch in his WWE matches, but none of that excitement translates to The Chaperone. Giant muscles aside, Levesque might as well be a moonlighting third-rate sitcom star.
To his credit, Levesque would probably be a perfectly decent third-rate sitcom star, and he pulls off the emotional moments about as well as can be expected with the stale writing. Old pros Corrigan, Gish and Enrico Colantoni do their best in small roles, and Winter (of TV'sModern Family) is sufficiently sassy as Sally. But if WWE is going to continue to insist on placing its stars in ill-fitting projects like this, the least it could do is spring for some livelier material
.
Schwarzenegger always came off as uncomfortable in those movies, and Levesque too seems a little out of place here, although he's really not a bad actor. He plays Ray Bradstone, a former criminal fresh off a seven-year stint in prison for being the getaway driver on a bank robbery. Ray's spent his time in prison studying a self-help program popularized by a motherly radio personality, and he's ready to turn his life around. Unfortunately for him, his ex-wife Lynne (Annabeth Gish) and teenage daughter Sally (Ariel Winter) want nothing to do with him, shutting him out when he shows up at their doorstep looking for a fresh start. Instead, Ray finds himself drawn back into the world of his former associates, with the sleazeball (Kevin Corrigan) who set Ray up for the fall on their last job roping him in to being the driver on a new bank hit.
Conveniently, the bank is right across the street from Ray's daughter's school, and so when he has a last-minute crisis of conscience, it's just a quick jaunt over to the bus taking Sally and her classmates on a field trip. Ray jumps aboard and decides that to win his daughter back, he must become ... the chaperone. The sentiment is as cheesy as the contrived set-up that places Ray's cohorts' ill-gotten money on the bus, thus setting them on his trail and ruining his potential bonding moments with Sally.
Of course Ray is going to reconcile with his family, and of course he's going to thwart the bad guys -- the only point of a movie like this is how it gets there. The Chaperone sets up half-hearted comic set pieces (the movie's idea of hilarity is one of Sally's classmates getting botched lip enhancements) interspersed with lackluster action sequences, making its execution just as listless as its premise. Levesque may be impressive to watch in his WWE matches, but none of that excitement translates to The Chaperone. Giant muscles aside, Levesque might as well be a moonlighting third-rate sitcom star.
To his credit, Levesque would probably be a perfectly decent third-rate sitcom star, and he pulls off the emotional moments about as well as can be expected with the stale writing. Old pros Corrigan, Gish and Enrico Colantoni do their best in small roles, and Winter (of TV'sModern Family) is sufficiently sassy as Sally. But if WWE is going to continue to insist on placing its stars in ill-fitting projects like this, the least it could do is spring for some livelier material
.
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