ThiefHott Too much of everything

Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Andrew Ray Throughout the long trajectory of his career, Robert Altman was known for interweaving multiple plots and characters within the context of a given theme. Think the brotherhood of the country music community in "Nashville" or the detachment of contemporary California life in "Short Cuts." But in 1999, Altman tried something a bit unique – he directed a motion picture with a plot. One plot. One story. A comparatively small cast of characters. It was called, "Cookie's Fortune," and it's this month's Buried Treasure.With a clever screenplay by Anne Rapp, "Cookie's Fortune" tells the story of Willis (Charles S. Dutton), a handyman wrongly accused of murder in a small Mississippi town. His widowed employer (Patricia Neal) commits suicide at the outset, and her daughters decide to disguise the shooting as a murder in a vain attempt to preserve the family's reputation. Since Willis had just cleaned the widow's guns the night before, his fingerprints are all over them. And there you have the most plot structure you'll ever find in an Altman film.What follows this sullen and morose setup is Altman's funniest picture since "M*A*S*H" in 1970. You see, everyone in the town knows Willis couldn't possibly commit murder. The jailer (a young Chris O'Donnell) consistently leaves the cell door open, and the sheriff (a fantastic Ned Beatty) plays cards with him – in the cell! You see, Beatty's character knows Willis is innocent because, "I've fished with him" – which seems to be his quintessence test for everyone he knows.But, as in every Altman film, there's one character who doesn't quite fit. One who takes things more seriously than the others. Remember how pathetically dangerous Robert Duvall's Major Frank Burns seemed in "M*A*S*H" (as opposed to the maniacal buffoon Larry Linville played on the long-running television series)? It was as though the Major Burns character walked on the set from another movie – just to give the audience a jolt; to let us know this is war, and war is real.In "Cookie's Fortune," Glenn Close plays Camille, the theatrical and mildly deranged daughter of the deceased – a slightly more comical version of her wicked turn in "Fatal Attraction." Camille is the smartest character in the picture, but she's also the one who doesn't belong; the one who, in a panic attack, might just turn this lovable comedy into a dreary exercise in unhinged madness. Fortunately, Altman is a skilled enough director to not allow this to happen, but my does he dangle it closely (pun intended). Had Glenn Close played her role ever so slightly more unsettled, the entire film would have been ruined. Altman walks a fine line allowing Camille to exaggerate her pomposity, but then her function seems to be to remind us that this is murder, and murder is real.Still, Altman never loses sight of the fact that "Cookie's Fortune" is a comedy, dark though it may be. The script is peppered with well-drawn characters, and the acting is first-rate – particularly Ned Beatty as the sheriff, and also Liv Tyler as Camille's desperado niece, whose boyfriend just so happens to be Chris O'Donnell's maladroit jailer. Altman is a master handling these intertwining characters, as he doles out information in small enough doses for us to completely process their connections, and for us to understand the soul of the town in which they regale.Unfortunately, "Cookie's Fortune" was released during the spring doldrums – that period between the Oscars and the summer blockbusters, when the studios trot out the fare they don't think anyone will pay to see. By the time the Oscars rolled around that year, the talk was all about "Magnolia," "American Beauty," "The Cider House Rules," and "The Green Mile." "Cookie's Fortune" was simply a forgotten footnote to American cinema in 1999. And that's a shame. You need to seek out this one. It's funny, touching, and intelligent – and easily one of Robert Altman's ten best films.

secondtake Cookie's Fortune (1999)A wacky, wobbly comedy with a stellar cast playing types and clichés that sometimes run against type and sometimes are too typecast to quite work. The writing varies, too, from warm to comic to contrived. The best parts of the movie might balance out the gaffes for you, though, as the plot coils and the very warm, almost-black comedy grows.The main character here seems at first to be Cookie herself, played by a venerable Patricia Neal. As an old movie fan, this was enough for me alone, and it was great to see Neal at 73 still going strong (she made two movies after this one, too). But the real central character is Willis, played by the little known Charles S. Dutton, who has done a lot of t.v. Willis is a great old friend who helps the old woman out of appreciation and love. One key to this movie is its setting--a small town in the Deep South where everyone knows everyone. And where old racial boundaries and still slow to fall. Cookie is the old white woman in the big house living alone while Willis is a poor black man who drinks a half-pint of Wild Turkey a day. The clichés are too plain to see, and are magnified by the ditzy, apparently racist two women who share a house, Julianne Moore and Glenn Close. Finally there is Liv Tyler who plays the new kind of woman, young and without prejudice.Such warm and fuzzy comedy is bound to avoid real social commentary just as much as avoid biting humor, or laugh-aloud humor for that matter. You have to immerse yourself in the quirks of the town and the likable characters everywhere. Even the most murderous intentions here are just twitches and mistakes. You could almost picture living here, despite all the dumbed down clichés about what white and black culture is all about, and what the people in such a place are like.No, Robert Altman has not quite laid an egg here, but if you take any of this seriously you might find the assumptions and clichés almost insulting, or at least so obvious and worn-out you want to run. From the goofy white cop who play Scrabble with the inmates to the big black woman who sings, of course, the blues in the local bar. From the worker by the railroad yard who lives in a caboose to Liv Tyler herself with that weird voice of hers who is so outside of convention and propriety you wonder why did she come back to this town at all?The writing by Anne Rapp, a "script supervisor" by profession, is the weakest link here. The movie might gloss over its thinness by claiming to be funny, but it just isn't that funny, and it's too laden with the obvious to rise up in other ways. I think this is one of those movies that's going to get worse with time, too, as the clichés look more and more wooden.But hey, lots of people like the film and the trick is to just enjoy what works and accept, if you can, the overworked clichés.

MisterWhiplash One might call Cookie's Fortune a 'minor' effort from Robert Altman, a filmmaker who once commented that each film "is all part of the same picture", or rather one long movie with bits and pieces making up a career whole. But it has enough going for it through its very competent cast and interesting script to keep it afloat from being the kind of small film little old ladies might watch on TV during the day. In that sense it isn't as 'heavy' as some of Altman's other work. It is also cool enough to treat the subject of a mystery around a suicide with enough humanity to make some scenes smile-worthy. Considering some of the darker elements in the script, Altman depicts this to the point where- get this- Cookie's Fortune is sometimes shown on the HBO family channel! Is it really a kid's film? I'm not sure, but it isn't work for only one age group- its appeal from its cast of a collective of small towners is appealing to most in the audience. That the cast- Glenn Close, Liv Tyler, (especially) Charles S. Dutton, even Chris O'Donnell- gels and plays some of the dialog sincerely even when its meant to not be taken seriously at all, is a credit to the filmmaker. That it also might not be quite as memorable as some of the director's major films is and is not a fault. It is a fault because the subject matter is sort of stuck in a certain genre realm. It is not because the subject mater is also very much more intelligent than would be expected at times. I was also fond of certain scenes and interactions with the actors, the rhythm of it all, like early on with Dutton and the actress Patricia Neal who plays the old lady. I also really like the climax. So it's a good work about the rumblings and eccentricities of a small town, the good in people as well as the lesser parts, and parts of greed and death seen through a light that is not aiming for anything 'cheap', so to speak.

noralee "Cookie's Fortune" has Robert Altman's patented esprit de corps with ensembles, here representing the intimacy of small town eccentrics, with somewhat amusing intricacies of lies and misunderstandings. The young folks' parts are underwritten so Chris O'Donnell simply doesn't have a lot to do, though Liv Tyler breathes life into her role.Rufus Thomas has an entertaining bit part. Lyle Lovett's role is a charming bit, less lines but more character substance than O'Donnell's.There is wonderful original blues music throughout, with guitar work by The Edge of U2.(originally written 5/9/1999)