Bernie

BERNIE
PG-13
104 Minutes
Director: Richard Linklater
Writers: Richard Linklater (screenplay), Skip Hollandsworth (screenplay)
Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, Matthew McConaughey

“I have found strength where one does not look for it: in simple, mild, and pleasant people, without the least desire to rule...The powerful natures dominate, it is a necessity, they need not lift one finger. -Friedrich Nietzsche. Nachlass, Fall 1880

Cast
Matthew McConaughey-Danny Buck
Jack Black-Bernie Tiede
Shirley MacLaine-Marjorie Nugent

Bernie has been called a dark comedy, but I feel this to be highly inaccurate. This story actually happened. It's a bizarre film that transcends genre, Unlike dead baby jokes; I felt uneasy laughing, even during the funny parts. Still, this is not Jack Black's least funny movie. That proud distinction belongs to NACHO LIBRE (2006).

Bernie Tiede worked as an assistant funeral director in Carthage, Texas. Funeral home directors have to try harder to be perceived as normal. You know want to be the creepy mortician, a necrophiliac of sorts, especially in a small town. So there's some overcompensation. Because a creepy mortician would be the first suspect in any murder investigation.

Bernie kept in touch with all the widows. Dropping by these ladies houses, giving them flowers and cards. He loved 'golden girls', and this was just the best way of getting into their Depends. I'm only kidding, of course, he wasn't into women all that much. Some might say, he was 'a little light in the loafers', to use the Texas vernacular.

If Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau could teach us anything, it's that polar opposites shouldn't live together in movies. This is where the problems began for Bernie and Marjorie. Their relationship began like a bad marriage. Marjorie gave him power of attorney, or a blank checkbook.

Pablo Escobar was liked, in spite of being a ruthless drug lord. Funny, when you build soccer stadiums people seem that conveniently forget all the harm you've caused. But Bernie wasn't a bad guy from the start. He was a real-life Ned Flanders. He spread his newfound wealth all over town, because it was already in his generous nature. This is a man that just snapped after being trapped with an emotionally abusive woman. It could happen to any of us; Billy Corgan was right, 'the killer in you is the killer in me'.

I've always maintained that the only time Matthew McConnaughy doesn't stink, is when he is in those Dolce and Gabbana cologne ads. He has experience playing dumb people and lawyers. But combining these two things has proven quite the challenge for him. In this movie, but, he played the dopey, country bumpkin, District Attorney. It's too much, no one that dumb could graduate law school, and pass the bar exam: no-sir-e-bob.

While there weren't too many LOL moments, this movie told an original, real-life story, most effectively. In short, this movie was well executed, if you'll pardon the pun.

Final Verdict: 82 out of 100