Another Weekend Movie Gem

There's nothing like stumbling home from the bars on a Friday or Saturday night and discovering a "gem" of a movie on cable. It's something me and my boy Jason (aka Mill or Miller) mastered in college, and something we still pull off to this day when I'm spending a weekend in Columbus.

Well, on this particular Friday night I wasn't stumbling home from any bars. In fact, I didn't even go out. I was relishing in another Cavs win and eagerly anticpating the end of the NFL Draft. That's right, the end of the draft. I don't get the fascination with the NFL Draft. I'm not going to sit around for 10 hours on a Saturday and wait every 15 minutes (10 this year, thank God) for some team I don't care about to draft some guy I've probably never seen play and quite possibly have never even heard of. Plus, not watching the NFL Draft means less Chris Berman in my life. Something we should all strive for.

With all that said, I was in the perfect state of mind to catch a "gem." And I did.

I flipped the channel to Spike TV and was intrigued with what I saw. What did I see, you ask? I saw Morgan Freeman walking down the street with Justin Timberlake in what appeared to be a movie. Now, I was downstairs so I didn't have available to me the guide that pops up on the TV screen. I couldn't figure out what was happening. Why would Morgan Freeman ever agree to do a movie with the guy from 'N Sync? I was intrigued, so I kept watching. The next scene guaranteed that I would watch the rest of this movie.

Morgan Freeman had just told JT -- as the kids call him -- to go get drunk (since apparently it was a Friday and that's what cool kids do on Fridays). We cut to a scene at a nightclub where people are dancing. Slow dancing. Oh, it gets better. JT is dancing with... wait for it... Piper Perabo!! I still didn't know what movie I was watching at that point, but there were two things I did know: I was in for a hilariously bad movie, and apparently Piper Perabo has actually done movies other than Coyote Ugly. Who knew?

Just when I thought things couldn't get any better, the bar was raised. Timberlake peered across the dance floor and locked eyes with who I could only assume was his enemy (considering I knew nothing of the plot at this point). He was also slow dancing with a girl. He was a black man. He was bald. He was... LL Cool J!! I swear to God this is all true. My head was spinning. I consider myself somewhat of a movie guy, but I was at a total loss. I had no idea what was going on. But I knew it was magic.

At that point I knew I was in for the long haul, so it was time to try to figure out the plot. Bad idea. Apparently, Morgan Freeman owned a newspaper and JT was a young reporter at said paper. JT was breaking a story about corrupt cops and, as you can imagine, those corrupt cops didn't like that very much. It appeared that LL was one of the corrupt cops, but he was also doing good deeds. He was kind of watching out for our boy JT. Interesting. Then, some rough looking dudes attacked JT and Piper after they exited the club, putting Piper in a coma. They must have been the corrupt cops. And one of them was the immortal Dylan McDermott. The only good thing Dylan McDermott has ever done is this -- and that's not even really him. But are you honestly telling me they couldn't pass for the same guy?

There was a lot for me to try to wrap my head around at this point. What studio would agree to "green light" a movie in which both Justin Timberlake and LL Cool J were going to play prominent roles? A documentary comparing the "Around The Way Girl" video with the "Cry Me A River" video? Yes. A movie starring the two of them? No, thanks. And why would Morgan Freeman agree to be in it?!? What director would take on this movie? And what is the name of this atrocity??

And then it happened.

In walks Kevin Spacey. I couldn't believe my eyes. Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman?!? These are Oscar-winning actors! These are really good actors. What is going on?!? Why was this happening? I was more confused than Shawn Kemp at a daycare center. Let me refresh your memory on the cast we are now working with: Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Justin Timberlake, LL Cool J, Piper Perabo, Dylan McDermott and the legendary John Heard -- better to known to most of us as Mr. McCallister from Home Alone. Apparently, forgetting his youngest son at home while going on vacation and then losing him in an airport a few years later drove Mr. McCallister to become a corrupt cop.

I quickly gave up on understanding what this movie was about and focused my attention on enjoying the hilariously bad acting and figuring out what the title of this beauty was. That's when my cell phone rang. It was 2:30a.m. It was Miller. Perfect. He had just stumbled home from the bars and was enjoying a screening of Mallrats on HBO. Talk about a gem. We have enjoyed the same screening of Mallrats on HBO the last two times I've been in Columbus. It doesn't get old.

I told Mill to flip over to Spike TV and tell me the name of the movie that was playing.

"Edison Force. Two stars," he said.

Edison Force. Then I remembered that the name of the fictional town in this abomination was Edison. The "Force" stood for police force. Wait a minute. Did he say two stars? This movie got two stars? How is that possible? I told him what I had seen so far as he marveled at watching a scene featuring Justin Timberlake and LL Cool J in a dramatic movie. We concluded the extra star came solely from the fact that Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey co-starred in the movie. I'm sure they both wish they could have a mulligan on this one, but they can't. They are in this movie. Two Oscar winners. Hence, the second star.

I went to the movie's IMDb page when it finally, and mercifully, ended. According to the website the title of the movie is just Edison. But the box cover that's featured on the site clearly reads Edison Force. And that's what I'm going with. It's the perfect name for this movie -- not well thought out, corny and... not well thought out. The writer and director -- David J. Burke -- has nothing else to his credit worth mentioning. Imagine that.

Can't you just picture that meeting at the studio?

"We're not sold on the script. What are you thinking for a cast?"

"We got Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey signed on."

"Great!! It's a go. Those guys can turn a shitty script into gold anyway. Who else did you have in mind?"

"Um, we're still working on that."

"Ok, that's fine. You got Freeman and Spacey. As long as you don't do something stupid like hire Ice Cube and Joey Fatone to fill out the other two key roles we should be in good shape." (hearty laughs)

"Yeah, exactly." (nervous smile)

It turns out, after further reading on the IMDb page, that the movie was originally set for realease in 2005, but it was pushed back after poor test screenings. No shit. And in the end, the film never made it to theatres. Straight to DVD.

But I'm still recommending it. Hey, it's entertaining. And that's what movies are supposed to be about. It might not be entertaining in the way the writer/director intended, but it is entertaining.

Ladies Love Cool James. I love Edison Force.