Simon Sez (1999) - By Alexandra Bradley

Film Reviews: Simon Sez (1999) - By Alexandra Bradley
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2005 @ 23:00:00 Mountain Standard Time by Duane

Simon (Dennis Rodman) is sort of like a bounty hunter in France. One day he runs into Nick Miranda (Dane Cook), an old schoolmate, who claims it’s a coincidence and asks him out to lunch. It turns out that Nick’s boss’s daughter was kidnapped and he was negotiating an exchange. Simon gets caught in the middle when the exchange goes wrong and the briefcase with two million dollars gets stolen. Simon retrieves it after Nick is knocked unconscious. He opens the case and instead of the money, there lies a disc with highly classified government information on it. Nick and Simon decide to keep the disc and rescue the girl on their own. When they rescue the girl she puts up quite a fight. In fact, she doesn’t seem to know she’s been kidnapped. Not long after, Nick loses the girl and she gets re-kidnapped. Now the fate of the world (and national monuments everywhere) rests on Simon and Nick, but mostly Simon.

Overall, it wasn’t such a bad movie. Dennis Rodman’s acting was terrible, but after a while you get used to it. He doesn’t end up saying much anyway. Actually, you can’t really call it acting. After watching the “making-of” featurette, it’s clear that Dennis Rodman was only reading his lines, that’s why it came off as terrible acting. Dane Cook and the two monk sidekicks carry most of the movie with their comic relief, which picks up the slack between action sequences. This movie was definitely made for two types of people. Lovers of mindless action crossed with comedy or lovers of Dennis Rodman or Dane Cook. Okay, so it was made for three types of people.

There were two things that were bothersome about Simon Sez. Before “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” there was “Simon Sez”, a flick with more wire tricks than “Team America.” They were so obvious and they were used for everything. Simon jumps up on the car hood and they use it. I think you can see the wire at one point. The second thing was that the action was so premeditated. I’m sure this sounds silly, but it’s true. The actors are already punching before they even see the bad guy. However, these are just minor details.

Dane Cook was really awesome. It’s a good idea to use a really good comedian to be the comic relief in a movie. It makes sense anyway. In all, if you like extreme action, dirtbikes vs. cars, James Bond wannabe gadgets, and a guy fighting in “T-rex” pose then you’ll like this movie. They even throw in some raver-like sex (strobe light and music included) and kung-fu stripping. It was very decent, three stars!