Big Empty, The

• USA • 2003 • 94m •

• Directed by: Steve Anderson. • Starring: Jon Favreau, Joey Lauren Adams, Bud Cort, Jon Gries, Daryl Hannah, Adam Beach, Gary Farmer, Rachael Leigh Cook, Brent Briscoe, Melora Walters, Kelsey Grammer, Sean Bean, Alejandra Aguilan. • Music by: Brian Tyler.

Would be-Hollywood actor John Person always considered his bizarre neighbor Neely a conspiracy theory nut-case. Still he accepts a simple task to wipe out his over $27,000 debt: delivering a blue suitcase to some Cowboy at Baker, in the empty desert. The place proves a nest of weirdos, including extremely jealous Randy and his girl Ruthie, who seduces John. He learns Neely was murdered, and FBI agent Banks grills him as prime suspect. Yet the weirdest is still to come once Cowboy turns up.

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2:24

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1:15

Review:

"The Big Empty" (2003) is a modest sci-fi tale. It builds upon reports of ufos and encounters with little green men that sometimes crop up in western states like the Nevada pictured here. The desert is the big empty physically. It also refers to people with empty or dead-end lives who are willing to take a chance on a ticket to an unknown planet. Jon Favreau is a struggling virile actor with heavy debts who might be one of these people. That's the decision he must eventually make. Along the way, there is an unrelated subplot in which he meets the young Rachael Leigh Cook and has to deal with her jealous boy friend, Adam Beach. Other only tangentially related bits involve his neighbor, Joey Lauren Adams, the death of neighbor Bud Cort, and an FBI agent, Kelsey Grammar. The alien he deals with is Sean Bean. A bartender-owner is Daryl Hannah.

There isn't much to the plot. The story's more bits and pieces and quirky characters than anything else. This makes for slowness at times. The acting is adequate, but seems a bit too self-conscious to be really engaging. It seems at times to be more of a game. The movie is rather blah.

The last few frames do not end the movie well, in my opinion. Although Favreau has decided to stay on Earth and not be beamed to a spaceship and counted as among the missing, we see certain signs that his life and being on Earth have been altered and so have that of Adams and Grammar. This creates confusion by suggesting a course that was not explored or hinted at earlier in the picture.

Review by msroz from the Internet Movie Database.

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