The Big Year (2011)

In a word: quaint.

Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson all play extremely devoted bird-watchers. The trailer, btw, does a remarkable job of obscuring how much of this movie is about bird-watching and makes it look like a screwball comedy. Its not.

Black and Martin are our protagonists, both driven to complete 'The Big Year', a scavenger hunt to see as many birds as possible across North America in one year. The current champion is Owen Wilson, who goes out among the birders, to make sure no one beats his record of over 730 species sighted.

While the film IS about birding, and does devote a remarkable amount of its run-time to the appreciation of birds and the hobby of watching them, it ultimately is about obsession, devotion, and the personal prices people pay in the quest for their passions. All 3 men want the title of 'best birder', and spend most of the movie trekking across the wilds of North America, but they all risk things at home. Black has already lost a marriage, and risks his job and his relationship with his ailing father. Martin is on the verge of retirement, and his business may collapse in his absence. Wilson's wife wants a baby, and his single-minded devotion to birding pushes his marriage to the edge.

I don't like pushing the film into this particular demographic... but I will. The Big Year is for old people.

I was in the screening theater with primarily older folks, 30's, 40's, and older. Free screening, and yet only older folks were interested. Steve Martin + bird-watching is just going to skew that way, I guess. While we were watching, I noticed that I wasn't really laughing at the jokes. Everything had a quaint, naive charm to it, but the comedy was about the level of your average sitcom. Very bland, very predictable, broad stroke characters. You know. But, the milquetoast comedy seemed to be winning over the crowd.

There was a particular moment where Steve Martin and Jack Black have rented a helicopter, and the pilot is helping them chase a rare bird. They swoop over the rocks and see it, taking in the majesty. Next thing you know, they are a little too close to the rocks, and they all yelp as the pilot pulls them away from the mountain face... and the lady next to me recoiled in fright and yelled along with Steve Martin. Yep, there's the crowd this movie was made for: the old lady who is excited by really dry action moments, and thinks there might actually be a chance that Steve Martin and Jack Black could both die in a helicopter crash half way through this PG-13 buddy comedy.

Don't get me wrong, its not a bad film. I thought all three characters, if a bit chilche, were workable and likable, and had well defined character arcs. The moral of the story, that you need to settle down and have kids like everyone else or else all your achievements aren't worth anything, is far from new (damn you Hollywood, for cramming this down our throats!) but well-worn by these characters, and comes across neatly, clearly. Owen Wilson actually does a great job of conveying this message in his final scenes; he really comes across as the strongest actor in the film. ... but while its not a bad film, its not a particularly funny or exciting one either, unless you're very easily pleased.

The Big Year kind of reminds me of Wild Hogs or Old Dogs, in that its a comedy filled with aging stars that's been developed in a sterile laboratory to specifically please your mom's sense of humor. However, I will give Big Year big props for not falling for the same tropes of those two films; no one in the film is playing the idiot, and it doesn't rely on stupid, ridiculous situational humor to beg for laughs. What jokes are there come from zingers and observational humor, and Jack Black is restrained at only one prat-fall for the entire film. Dry, naive humor, maybe, but at least everyone involved kept their dignity.