DailyView: Day 284, Movie 400

The 400th movie in the DailyView was a film I had never heard of before and was on Peacock. I loved Robin Williams and the premise surprised me. Unfortunately, The Big White felt like a poor man’s Fargo.

Paul Barnell (Robin Williams) and his wife Margaret (Holly Hunter) had been having problems, especially with money. Paul’s brother Raymond (Woody Harrelson) had been missing for five years so Paul tried to cash in a life insurance policy on him.

Insurance investigator Ted Waters (Giovanni Ribisi) told Paul that they could not Raymond declared dead until he was missing for at least 7 years.

Paul, desperate to figure something out, discovered a dead body in the dumpster outside his work. Paul decided to take the body and make it seem as if it was his brother come back, only to die accidentally.

Ted never believed the coincidental result and a couple of thugs (Tim Blake Nelson and W. Earl Brown) who had put the man in the dumpster in the first place both were putting the pressure on Paul.

While I think there are some good ideas in the film and some moments were decent, much of the movie is a mess. The whole “Tourette Syndrome” storyline with Margaret never worked, was played for comedy and was never resolved. Ted went off the rails big time in the movie and that did not feel right. The love interests were odd characters just for the sake of being odd.

Robin Williams is great as usual. Woody Harrelson was playing a character that he has played in many other movies.

The story is messy and convoluted. It has some moments, but I think it would be more effective if it had been edited down.

It was not a terrible movie I watched, but it could have been so much better.