The Wendell Baker Story
Luke Wilson plays a good-hearted ex-con who gets a job in a retirement hotel. Three elderly residents help him win back his girlfriend as he lends them a hand in fighting hotel corruption.
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- Cast:
- Luke Wilson , Eva Mendes , Jacob Vargas , Owen Wilson , Kris Kristofferson , Harry Dean Stanton , Seymour Cassel
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Reviews
I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Great Film overall
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
The acting in this movie is really good.
"The Wendell Baker Story" has a couple of giggles, but you would expect a lot more from a cast like this. Seymour Cassel and Harry Dean Stanton provide the most interesting characters, with their small parts. Kris Kristofferson is also quite good, but the Wilsons and Eva Mendes are totally unappealing. The movie really tries to accomplish way too much, and the chop shop editing is downright annoying. Is it a comedy, or a romance, or a drama? I give up and so will you, because in the end, it all adds up to very little. Skip this one and you won't be missing much, other than a pretty fair soundtrack. ............................................ MERK
Most people know Owen Wilson. Many people know Luke Wilson. Few people are probably familiar with Andrew Wilson. He's the hand with the BB in it in The Royal Tenenbaums. He pops up from time to time in Anderson movies and other movies with the Wilsons in them. But maybe he's a bit more camera shy and doesn't want to be an image on the screen, so for the most part he hasn't followed the same path as his brothers. Now, apparently, he's directing. Cool! This is probably the hardest type of movie to review. Simply stated, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it isn't very good. The imagery is nice. The story is pleasant, but predictable. The humor I get, but it's kind of slow and isn't really memorable. Character development feels added as an after-thought, but at least it's there. It honestly feels like O Brother Where Art Thou? meets My Name is Earl without the skill of the former or the humor of the latter. It's a very non-specific movie, which is why I feel very non-specific about it.I'd state that as an entertainment medium, it's worth a rental, but that it probably won't be on shelves for long. In the meantime, Luke and Andrew Wilson show enough skill in directing that perhaps either or both of them can go on to make some much more interesting movies in the future. For now, though, I wouldn't really recommend this movie to anyone in particular as it doesn't really feel like it has much personality.--PolarisDiB
OK now I have always liked Luke and Owen Wilson as well as many other stars in this film such as Eddie Griffin, Eva Mendes, Kris Kristofferson, and Will Ferrell but for some reason this movie wasn't funny at all. It was more dramatic and from the looks of the trailer, I was expecting a comedy with several laughs since it starred Luke and Owen Wilson, but I only laughed like twice the whole movie and I was expecting to laugh way more. It kind of tells the life of Wendell Baker, but it really fails to make anything about his life funny like they should have. Overall I give this a 4 out of 10 because I was expecting a comedy, not a drama. I wouldn't recommend this to comedy fans, but if you are looking for something different and you are a Luke Wilson fan then you may like this, but i'm not sure because I am a Luke Wilson fan and I didn't even like this one.
I'm supposed to like "The Wendell Baker Story". From having lived in the Austin area for the last 27 years and in Austin proper for the last 11, I recognized most of the locales in the film. Plus, I went to the University of Texas at the same time the Wilson brothers did (along with Matthew McConaughey & Renee Zellweger). I will freely admit that I like brother Owen's screenplays directed by Wes Anderson ("Bottle Rocket", "Rushmore", "The Royal Tennenbaums"). And Luke Wilson--as both writer and director--attempts to emulate the Owen/Wes style in this movie. Unfortunately, his skills as a writer don't match his brother's, and as a director he seems grossly incompetent. And as lead actor, he--as always--gets by on his good looks and Texas accent rather than any discernible talent.The story is about Wendell Baker (Luke Wilson), a huckster who gets arrested for forging fake id's for illegal aliens. After he gets out of jail, he finds that his girlfriend Doreen (Eva Mendes) has dumped him and most of his friends want nothing more to do with him. While Wendell was in jail, he studied the hotel business, and that lands him a job in a retirement home run by the evil Neil King (Owen Wilson) and his henchman McTeague (Eddie Griffin). It's not much of a spoiler to say that Wendell saves the day, wins back Doreen and makes a few quirky friends along the way. But I won't give any details as to how this is accomplished.Like "Rushmore", this is very much a story about a misfit who doesn't get that he's a misfit. Also, like Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, the film is peppered with really great--if somewhat obscure--songs from a bygone era. But whereas Owen and Wes opt for British pop music from the 1960's, Luke prefers Texas Outlaw country music from the 1970's. He even casts Kris Kristofferson in a key role and Billy Joe Shaver in a small role. Between the two of them, they wrote nearly half the country hits between 1969 and 1980.Also unlike Owen Wilson, whose characters are funny, quirky and sad, Wilson's characters are merely quirky. And unlike Wes Anderson, Luke doesn't know how to properly set up a shot or light an indoor set. Most of the indoor scenes are dramatically under-lit. Often, the sun coming through a window will render a character's arm or stomach visible, but the head will be shrouded in darkness. This would work well if this were a film noir, but given that this is supposed to be a feel-good comedy, I have to assume this was not intentional. It is a real problem in the scenes that Owen and Luke have together, since the only physical difference between the two is their hair color.I also need to say that the acting--except for the notable exception of Will Ferrell making the most of a small part--is mediocre at best. Luke Wilson has always been one of the blandest actors in Hollywood. Owen is a talented actor, but not here. Eddie Griffin is truly awful. Although Eva Mendes is pretty to look at, she's not much of an actress. And it's really saying something when I mention that Luke can't wring a good performance out of Harry Dean Stanton or Seymour Cassel.There are things that I liked about this movie. I have already mentioned the soundtrack and Will Ferrell's performance. I also give Wilson props for filming in North Central Austin (where I once lived and still frequent) instead of the usual haunts of UT, downtown and South Austin (seen in "Slacker", "The Life of David Gale" and "Grindhouse") where I rarely have any reason for going.Overall, I would have to say this movie was done by an enthusiastic but talentless amateur trying too hard to step out of his more-talented brother's shadow. But for Will Ferrell, I would have given this 5 out of 10. But Ferrell is so good, I will give it an extra star.