Throw a stone anywhere in Los Angeles and you’ll hit a wannabe screenwriter. If you knocked out one holding the latest scribble for Rob Schneider, you’ve done well and deserve a beer on the house. If you knocked out the person responsible for the “The Idea Guy,” please tell him his film is just a couple of ideas short of a good movie.
Nicely done, but a little too repetitive. “The Idea Guy” tells the tale of a desperate, but humble writer wanting to make the big-time in Hollywood. After sending various ideas to his hardly helpful agent, he finally scores an idea worthy of a paycheck. But being a writer is more than big checks, star-studded movie premieres, and hot babes. One must keep their agent always hungry for more great ideas.
The only problem is that with every keystroke of genius, he gets a shooting pain in his noggin. A dozen headaches and successful scripts later, he writes the ultimate masterpiece. He also gets the ultimate headache and kicks the bucket. His girlfriend brings the manuscript to his agent’s office in the hopes that her love’s work will live on. The funny thing is that the agent thinks it sucks. What a twist of irony! “The Idea Guy” finally ends in a “movie within a movie” fashion that’s as predicable as…well a typical Hollywood script.
The problem with “The Idea Guy” is that it’s short on ideas. Writer writes, does well, and gets a headache. Rinse and repeat. Most of the film is also told in voice-over, which is cute at first, but soon feels like a grade teacher reading short stories from Highlights. It does a semi-convincing job at seeking sympathy for it’s tortured writer, but unless you live and breathe the Hollywood scene or are Magnoliafan@moviegeek.com, nobody in the real world is going to share the same sentiments.
The best idea “The Idea Guy” has is the painful headaches our hero gets from his quick wit. If one could only harness this evil into the minds of the madmen who were writing such suckfests as The Animal or Joe Dirt our world would be a much better place.
