HELD UP (2000) *1/2 Jamie Foxx, Nia Long, Barry Corbin, John Cullum, Jake Busey, Michael Shamus Wiles, Sarah Paulson, Eduardo Yanez, Julie Hagerty. (Dir: Steve Rash) Jamie Foxx is a definite up and coming star in the making.
Witness his eponymous WB tv series, his stint on the ensemble Fox hit, 'In Living Color' and last year's dramatic acting debut in Oliver Stone's bone-crunching look at pro football as a cocksure, divaesque quarterback in 'Any Given Sunday.' That's what makes it all the more difficult to figure out why he squandered his naturally given gift in this lame fish-out-of-water comedy.
Foxx stars as a put-upon guy named Mike who's traveling cross country with his sexy girlfriend Rae (the luscious Long, equally wasted) only to wind up in a podunk backwater Arizona desert town, North Butte. After a quarrel due to Rae learning Mike has spent nearly every dime into the vintage Stuedebaker they're tooling around in leads a seriously angry Rae to leave Mike to his own resources as she bums a ride in a pick-up of good ol' boys to head back to the local airport for the first plane back home to Chicago.
Chagrined Mike winds up facing a firecracker string of bad luck from getting his classic ride carjacked, to being left with fifty bucks and finally being held up in the convenience store he's been dumped at. There is the meat of the action more or less as Mike uses his sarcastic tone to great effect in negotiating with the dim novice robber Rodrigo (Yanez) who can't command two thoughts at the same time. Among the hostages include a local gal named Mary (Paulson, an uncanny Kelly Preston look-alike), a leather capped biker (Wiles) so engrossed in his magazine reading he barely notices the crime except to pontificate on every germaine item that pops into conversation a la Cliff Clavin of 'Cheers', and the world-weary store owner Jack (Cullum, late of the cult tv series 'Northern Exposure'), who has an answer for everything as well.
To gum up the works is the local sheriff, Pembry (Corbin, also from 'Exposure'), who has an ax to grind with Mike for ruining his little league baseball game which is still in progress as he tries to command his inept squad of Barney Fifes including his by the book deputy Beaumont (Busey, son of Gary) who provides the official rules of negotiation by the FBI from its cellophaned shrink wrapping.
Foxx does the best with the dog-eared hoary plot such as it is and does his own riff on this ill-advised comedy attempt of 'Dog Day Afternoon' with not much at risk and a pedestrian pace by the director Steve Rash. The one running gag of a kid in the store thinking Mike is Puff Daddy is the atypical type of humor strung out for a laugh.
The only thing that's held up is the audience's patience and the tight leash the film has on its star's true talent.
