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By CityThe Producers
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The Producers...Shouldn't have left Broadway!
2006-01-18
Article Written by: Sami Jo
What do you get when you create a film from a famous Broadway play with an incredibly talented cast? In the case of The Producers, you get nothing but disappointed! Yep, this film ranks right up there with Gigli and Julian Po on my do not, under any circumstance, see this film ever again. Even with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, the profitable duo from the Broadway show, Mel Brooks’ Tony Award winning play makes an unsettling transfer to screen.
In her big screen debut, director Susan Stroman, a Broadway choreographer and recipient of five Tony Awards, won’t be dancing her way out of this mess. It appears that Stroman simply forgot she wasn’t working on a stage this time around. Many of the actor’s gestures were over dramatized as if they were acting from the stage to the last row of the theater – not in front of a camera. Unfortunately for her, even the choreography is sub-par. The dancers are often out of sync.
Will Ferrell (Anchorman) and Uma Thurman (Kill Bill) are the only lead actors that weren’t in the Broadway performance. Ferrell, Roger Bart (Carmen Ghia) and Gary Beach (Roger De Bris) provide few laughs throughout the extraneous length of the film.
Final Thought: If you want to see a good Broadway musical crossover to film, wait for RENT to be released on DVD.
