Review: Outside Providence

Set in Rhode Island in the mid-70s, Shawn Hatosy stars as a stoner no-hoper whose boorish widowed father (Alec Baldwin) gets tired of his delinquency and decides to send him to an exclusive prep school focussed on academic excellence and upstanding behaviour. No drugs, no alcohol, no sex. Hatosy manages to get around these three rules and even falls for a female student (Amy Smart) who is as beautiful as she is smart, and despite this she somehow falls for Hatosy too. It’s through this girl that Hatosy starts to…well, learn something for the first time in his life. Jon Abrahams plays Hatosy’s best bud named Drugs Delaney, Jonathan Brandis plays one of his other stoner pals, whilst Richard Jenkins and George Wendt prove that Alec Baldwin has better friends than Shawn Hatosy does.

 

I didn’t know going in that this 1999 film from director/co-writer Michael Corrente (“American Buffalo”) was co-written by the Farrelly Brothers (“Dumb & Dumber”, the overrated “There’s Something About Mary”) or that it was based on a novel by Peter Farrelly. Had I known, perhaps I would’ve better understood what this film was trying to be. I think it was meant to be a coming-of-age film through the filter of a Farrelly brothers movie (And apparently this was due to Harvey Weinstein interference, as the story was originally meant to be less comedic). Having said that, and having seen the film, there’s no way that this story should’ve been a comedy, and it doesn’t really work on a more serious level, either. Shawn Hatosy’s character is way too stupid to convince. I honestly don’t believe Hatosy would’ve lasted long enough at this school to get the chance to start improving his grades, let alone be capable of it. He’s a moron at the start, not a stoner with untapped potential. I mean, he willingly associates with a guy who calls himself Drugs Delaney (Jon Abrahams aping Sean Penn circa 1982). Speaking of drugs, the film’s depiction of stoners is right out of the manic depressive 90s, not the hippie 60s and 70s. There’s a difference: They don’t look happy here, for starters (The late Jonathan Brandis does not look good here at all, and it may not have been acting. It’s so sad what happened to him, he was a genuine talent).

 

The film’s humour was mostly lost on me, save for Baldwin’s views on sexual intercourse, which are truly hilarious. As for Baldwin’s performance, he fares best in his scenes with Hatosy, otherwise he’s right out of a sitcom or “SNL” sketch, especially with his phony accent. The best performance by far comes from the lovely Amy Smart, who steals the entire film by doing her thing and looking the way she does. Hatosy is a much better actor than say, Mark Wahlberg, but his character sinks him, and the film.

 

It’s stupid, not consistently funny (though I’m no Farrelly Brothers fan), and the only thing that convinces is the soundtrack. If you like your 70s rock, you’ll get a little more out of this slight, insubstantial film than most. If the film took itself more seriously and made Hatosy seem intelligent enough at the beginning to seem like he has the potential for scholastic improvement, then this film would actually be something. As is…meh.

 

Rating: C