Commandments

Verily, I say unto you, if thou valuest thine time (or at least 93 minutes thereof), thou wilt avoid this surpassingly halt and lame comedy. Aidan Quinn--whose monotone voice is only exceeded here by his monotone performance--is Seth, a modern-day Job whose lost his wife (sad), his house (in a twister that spared his neighbors), and been struck-along with his dog-by lightning. In fact, the setup is so obvious, you could go into the Amazon jungle and show a native person the first five minutes of this movie, and he'd go "oh, right, contemporary version of Job," before returning to the more sensible task of blowdarting various types of meat out of the trees. Having had his fill of divine retribution or testing or whatever, Seth vows to break the 10 commandments, ostensibly to show God that he's messed with the wrong speck of dust. Moving in with his sister-in-law (Courtney Cox, who--although I hadn't seen her previously--is perfectly suited to the small screen from whence she came and should return at once) and her lowlife husband (Anthony LaPaglia), Seth predictably plays out his revenge fantasy (guess who's the adultery bait) until the final 10 minutes, when the film simply throws up its collective hands and says, "hey, we've sucked 'em in this far, let's go for the whole biblical metaphor enchilada." I won't reveal the actual deus ex machina used for this purpose, but trust me it stinks to Heaven. Neither fish (a serious religious odyssey) nor fowl (a really funny black comedy about religion), Commandments is--to speak plainly--just another bad movie. Not recommended. (R. Pitman)[DVD Review--January 25, 2005--Universal, 88 min., R, $9.99--Making its debut on DVD, 1996's Commandments is presented in a solid anamorphic widescreen transfer (in a 1:78:1 aspect ratio, although an onscreen disclaimer says the image has been "modified") with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, but with no extras (or even a DVD menu). Bottom line: a clunker then, a clunker now. Very optional.]