Outside Providence

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: my favorite scene in this movie is when dumphy's little brother gets his bong for him and he says it a musical instrument and dumphy has to try to play notes on it.

Rating:
Summary: Providence Well worth your time
Review: Outside providence is a delightful comedy about a troubled teenager in the early 70's who gets sent to a private school by his father (Baldwin). The friends he meats the trouble he has and the girl he hooks up with.

Rating:
Summary: Outside Providence an insider's delight
Review: Outside Providence is a poignant coming-of-age film with a GREAT soundtrack -- not to mention that it's funny as hell. I mean, what more could you want? However, our detractors unfortunately stereotype the Farrelly Brothers as somehow being required to make a mindless, 'wacky' farcical romp every time. Sure, this movie has a few serious moments, but I mean, why can't the artist circumvent his heretofore creative bounds and make something which breaks the mold? Also, Alec Baldwin -- who steals almost everything he's in (Glengarry Glen Ross, anyone) is ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS in his role as a heartbroken father of a dysfunctional teen. I checked this movie out after hearing an assortment of bad reviews. However, this is good stuff -- trust me.

Rating:
Summary: Winsome parady of 70s culture
Review: Outside Providence is a slight but charming coming-of-age movie set in the 1970s. It is the type of picture which makes the film festival circuit and is lucky if it finds a distributor. It received venomous reviews from critics, but much of what they wrote seemed to be about the picture's producer, Peter Farrelly. This guy, along with his brother, wrote and directed both Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary. The siblings are also behind this summer's Jim Carrey release, Me, Myself and Irene. Mr. Farley also penned the novel on which Outside Providence is based. Many of these critics seemed convinced that Farrelly used his power to muscle Miramax Films into making the movie. Well, so what? Welcome to Hollywood, boys and girls.

Timothy Dumphy [Shawn Hatosy] is a likable working-class kid. He lives in a run down house in Pawtucket, Rhode Island with his Dad, his wheelchair bound younger brother [cool kid!] and a three-legged mutt. He loves to hang out with his long-haired buddies, who while away the summer nights smoking pot. One night, the car they are riding in gets so smoke filled that the driver rear ends a parked police car. Dad has an influential friend who saves Timothy from jail by somehow getting him into a private boarding school in Connecticut, where Timothy and his new friends while away the fall nights smoking pot. He soon meets a rich girl from Virginia, and they spend their afternoons in the woods smoking pot. The villain in the movie is a prissy teacher who loves to bust the kids and put them on work detail. As soon as his back is turned, they usually run and hide and smoke you know what. I think I got a contact high about halfway through Outside Providence.

What impressed me was that, given a plot that is more a series of vignettes than a story, director Michael Corrente was able to do anything at all with the movie. Nothing much happens. The dramatic high point occurs when Jane [Amy Smart], the girlfriend, convinces Timothy that he might rise above a 'D' grade average if he quits getting stoned while he studies.

Most of the movie's scenes are basically skits. Some work, and some don't. This structure weakens the film, because, by its nature, it makes it inconsistent. When the skits work, they are very funny. The ones that don't aren't so much boring as they are flat.

Don't get the wrong impression from all the drug use. All of these kids are basically sweet-natured and kind. So are all but one of the adults. In this version of the 70s, beer and weed are just part of growing up. There is not one teenaged character here who does not indulge. I suspect that this is how Peter Farrelly, who was born in 1957, remembers growing up. Considering how delightfully deranged his movies are today, this may be autobiographical material.[....]Is it possible that what offended critics so much, besides who produced Outside Providence, was the fact that these kids indulge in behavior that would get you twenty to life in our uptight times? Did they ever stop to consider that the movie is a parody of life in the 70s? Are we so ramrod straight now that we don't know a comedy when we see one, if said comedy is politically incorrect? My point is that, while this movie is hardly great cinema, it still is a small but often warm bit of entertainment. Lighten up!

Rating:
Summary: Must Have movie
Review: outside providence was based on a book by peter farelly, and at first glance it is not your typical farelly brothers movie. it's as funny as many other farelly brothers movies, but the gross out jokes and over the top gags are more reigned in. this is more of a coming age/romantic comedy rather than another dumb and dumber. when this movie first came out it seemed to equally disapoint critics and fans because it was either derivitive or just not up to the stature of there's something about mary. some critics complained about alec balwin's acting or that this was really a "drug movie." it's true the kids do smoke pot a lot, and one of tim dumphy's best friends is named drugs, but this is really about the lead character tim dumphy. "dumph" is a likeable character goes out of his way for friends and family. for example he leaves school, travels 3 hours by bus just to take his brother to a patriots game. how many brothers would do that? there is also a romantic side to dumph who falls in love with the most beautiful girl in school, jane. but as dumph tells his friends, he doesn't even care whether he has sex with or not. how many teenage guys are like that. alec baldwin turns in another great performance as the hard ass dad who calls dump "dildo," but you can tell he loves his son, and just wants what's best for him. there are a few unnecessary moments like the heart to heart between dump and his father and the other between alec balwin and his poker buddies. it's one homophobic joke after another. are we supposed to believe that just because their working class guys that their supposed to be ignorant homophobes." otherwise this is a wonderful comedy with good acting and a heartwarming story.

Rating:
Summary: coming of age classic
Review: outside providence was based on a book by peter farelly, and at first glance it is not your typical farelly brothers movie. it's as funny as many other farelly brothers movies, but the gross out jokes and over the top gags are more reigned in. this is more of a coming age/romantic comedy rather than another dumb and dumber. when this movie first came out it seemed to equally disapoint critics and fans because it was either derivitive or just not up to the stature of there's something about mary. some critics complained about alec balwin's acting or that this was really a "drug movie." it's true the kids do smoke pot a lot, and one of tim dumphy's best friends is named drugs, but this is really about the lead character tim dumphy. "dumph" is a likeable character goes out of his way for friends and family. for example he leaves school, travels 3 hours by bus just to take his brother to a patriots game. how many brothers would do that? there is also a romantic side to dumph who falls in love with the most beautiful girl in school, jane. but as dumph tells his friends, he doesn't even care whether he has sex with or not. how many teenage guys are like that. alec baldwin turns in another great performance as the hard ass dad who calls dump "dildo," but you can tell he loves his son, and just wants what's best for him. there are a few unnecessary moments like the heart to heart between dump and his father and the other between alec balwin and his poker buddies. it's one homophobic joke after another. are we supposed to believe that just because their working class guys that their supposed to be ignorant homophobes." otherwise this is a wonderful comedy with good acting and a heartwarming story.

Rating:
Summary: Enough with the mumbo jumbo....
Review: Plain and simple this movie rocked... I used to watch it at least once a day... but now I've cut down to once a week... So if you have any sense of humor at all I'd buy it... It's awesome....

Rating:
Summary: A GOOD FILM.
Review: Seeing as this was the latest installment of the Farrelly bros. (after flicks like kingpin and dumber & dumber), i wasn't sure what to expect from OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE. I was very pleasantly surprised at this movie. it was a coming of age story that really makes you laugh, and has a great soundtrack of 70s songs. if you liked dazed and confused, try this out... it is a good movie.

Rating:
Summary: Great performances. Highly recommended.
Review: Simply put, this is a wonderful film. The story is not original but this is not meant as a criticism, since very few stories are anymore. What sets this movie apart is the the way in which all of the characters are thought out and portrayed and the skill of actors involved. The physical comedy is well done, but not cartoonish, like in There's Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber (the film makers better known productions).

Alec Baldwin gives his role the kind of depth unusual in modern popular culture where father figures are ridiculed and dismissed as stupid, cruel, or dysfunctional. The scenes where Baldwin's character teaches his son how to put on a tie properly, and his confrontation over his wife's suicide are unexpected, genuine, brilliant, and moving.

This could have been a buffoonish movie that turned on humor frequently drawn from teen cruelty and immaturity. What we have, instead, is a film that plays on all of the comic potential of drugs, disco, the 1970s, and Pawtucket, Rhode Island; but it is also about friendship, loyalty, respect for women, making mistakes, and doing the right thing to make up for them. I suspect that most people who rent this will come looking for something between "There's Something About Mary" and "Porky's." They will be disappointed because they miscalculated. Anyone looking for something more will be glad that they picked up "Outside Providence."

Rating:
Summary: Try it, You'll Like it!
Review: Summary: Pothead Dunph gets into a little trouble and is spared jail time when his father pulls some strings to get him sent to a prep school instead of jail. He ends up leaving more than just his old friends behind when he goes.

My Opinion: I was very surprised with this movie. It is pushed very strongly as a comedy. Probably because the Farrelly Brothers are famous for those. Although it has funny parts, I don't consider it a comedy. It is more of a coming of age film. It takes place in the 1970s and has a killer soundtrack. If I had not been so pleasantly surprised I would have given this movie 4 stars but it's nice to be surprised.

DVD Quality: Widescreen anamorphic format. How can they make anything but?

What You Should Do: See it. If you don't buy every DVD under the sun like some of us then rent it. There is quite a lot of drug use in the film but it does have a point. It may be too subtle of a point for some to grasp though. If you liked "Detroit Rock City", "Almost Famous", or "Varsity Blues" then you should bump this one up on your list of movies to see.