FauxNixon

1999’s Lake Placid was an unusual movie from its beginnings.  It’s a star-studded black comedy about a giant crocodile terrorizing a small lake community in Maine featuring a flamboyant, wealthy professor with a passion for crocodiles in Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt), a common-sense, polite and gentlemanly local sheriff named Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson), Jack Wells (Bill Pullman) a rough-and-tumble member of the Maine Fish and Wildlife Service, and Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda), a professor of paleontology with a New York City-based natural history museum.

With all of this and a small role with Betty White playing a local lake resident, it is directed by Steve Miner, whose directorial career to that point had been limited to television work and a small number of romantic comedies like My Father the Hero.

The group investigates the mysterious deaths that have been associated with the lakes and eventually learn that a giant crocodile is to blame, but the really great element of this movie is the work done by Platt and Gleeson in playing off of each other in comedic roles.  Gleeson’s American accent is spot-on, as is his portrayal of a polite and kindly local sheriff who is constantly heckled by the very charming, well-educated, and intensely funny Platt whose over-the-top performance really steals the show.

Bill Pullman’s character is weak and derivative; he adds little to the picture.  Bridget Fonda might as well be a study in cliches.  Between her poorly-written lines and her mediocre performance had she not been involved with the project, she would not have been missed.

All told, if you take a viewing of Lake Placid with the same cheeky, black comedic attitude with which it was made, you will be rewarded with a very enjoyable experience.