After the promise of director Jonathan Wacks's Powwow Highway, his new film is a rather sore disappointment. Ethan Hawke stars as Tom McHugh, a suburban kid who's been spying on his next-door neighbor, house sitter Geena Matthews (Teri Polo). When Tom's brother Craig suddenly appears, Craig takes charge and calls Geena, setting up a date for his timid brother. Craig also takes him to get a haircut, loans him his sport coat, and buys him a pair of glasses, until pretty soon Tom begins to look a bit like Craig. The opening 15 minutes are very much an homage to Risky Business, but once Tom picks up Geena, things begin to go awry. Stopping at a gas station, Tom is accosted by a detective who thinks he's Craig. Opening the trunk of his car, he discovers a dead Chinese man whose gun accidentally goes off killing the detective. Driving around Vancouver, Tom is constantly being slapped by women and chased by Chinese hoodlums and police officers who mistake him for his brother. Eventually, Tom figures out that Craig stole a valuable vase which contains incriminating information about a scam involving a local art dealer and members of the police force. As a comedy of errors, Mystery Date has a few wonderful moments (most of them involving B. D. Wong's amusingly skewed portrayal of the crooked art dealer Mr. Lew), but the story is so consistently unbelievable (Tom and Craig's resemblance is way too minimal to account for the mistaken identity which the whole film hinges on) and self-indulgently wacky that viewers are likely to become either bored or confused (or both) rather quickly. Not recommended. (R. Pitman) [Blu-ray Review—Feb. 23, 2016—Olive, 98 min., PG-13, Blu-ray: $29.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1991's Mystery Date is presented with a fine transfer but no extras. Bottom line: shinier on Blu-ray, but still a disappointing rom-com.]
Mystery Date
color. 98 min. Orion Home Video. (1991). $92.98. Rated: PG-13 Library Journal
Mystery Date
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