Tedious, messy, and mostly unfunny.
Directed by Christopher Livingston, in only his second film in fifteen-years, and incoherently written by the two stars, Brian Drolet and Hoyt Richards, the aptly named Dumbbells contained one, maybe two funny moments in its very long one-hundred-minutes. Those amusing scenes were when the aforementioned actors, playing Chris Long and Jack Guy, were being turned down for bank loans by the funny Jay Malone, and if the movie contained more scenes like those, perhaps the film would have been a little better. Not only was Fabio drafted in to play himself, and strangely, didn’t manage to play himself all that well, Jay Mohr, Carl Reiner and Tom Arnold were included, along with the kitchen sink, in a poor attempt at amusing us.
- Dumbbells
- Directed by
Christopher Livingston - Cast
Brian Drolet, Hoyt Richards, Mircea Monroe, Taylor Cole - Release Date
10 January 2014 - Ed’s Grade: D
Chris Long has a promising career playing college basketball but gets injured during a game and can’t play anymore. His girlfriend then dumps him, and two-years later he’s working in a gym called Sweat Hard. The gym is taken over by ex-model, Jack Guy, who renames the place, Dumbbells, and arranges for a reality show to be filmed with Fabio hosting, but Jack ends up in financial ruin and having to lay off all the staff.
Chris falls in love with Jack’s niece (played by the lovely Taylor Cole), and together Jack and Chris devise a stupid plan to get Jack’s money back and get the gym going again. Jack was part of a cult for twenty-years, who took $6 million from the former model, and now Jack wants it back.
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As far as the acting went, it was mostly not bad, but like the direction, it went from good to downright strange. At times the film felt as if no one was helming, and the cast were allowed to do their own thing, but then we’d get moments of clarity, and things would look promising again, only to be let down by the writing. For lack of more to say about Dumbbells, if I were you, I’d give this one a pass and save yourself one-hundred tedious, boring minutes.
Review by Ed Blackadder, Lead Entertainment Writer
