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Review by Frank Wilkins

There are message movies and then there are message movies. The former usually are wonderful little surprises with interesting characters, well thought out storylines and subtle messages that impact you without intruding on or muddying the experience. The latter usually plod through the plot, present shallow characters and hit you over the head with the message like an anvil.

Life or Something Like It is definitely of the latter sort. Lanie Kerigan (Angelina Jolie) is a shallow, self-absorbed news reporter in Seattle, working her way up through the ranks of her fellow talking heads. She is experiencing the perfect life: she lives in a ritzy hi-rise condo, has a professional baseball playing boyfriend, and gets the call to try out for the Network position in New York City. Jolie's presence on the screen is riveting, as she sports a platinum blonde, Marilyn Monroe-tribute hairdo that refuses to dishevel except right at the perfect moment when needed for dramatic effect. For added motive and emphasis, the camera often stops and ogles at her luscious lips and Bambi eyes often filling the screen with her features. Did you know she has this little crease right there at the top of her upper lip? Never mind, let's move on.

Lanie shares her excitement about her new job with Pete (Edward Burns), her cameraman, with whom she shares a love-hate relationship. Pete is the scruffy, down to earth, wholesome working guy who lives in a modest wooden, warm home - in absolute opposition to Lanie's perfect job, perfect life, perfect hair, living in her cold, stainless steel condo. The minute we experience their first abrasive encounter, we realize that they won't remain abrasive towards each other for long. It's this kind of predictability throughout Life or Something Like It that keeps it from achieving any amount of credibility.

Lanie and Pete do an interview with a locally famous homeless soothsayer (Tony Shalhoub) about the outcome of that week's Seattle Seahawks football game. He delivers a trifecta of predictions, claiming that the locals will win by a score of 19-13, that it will hail tomorrow and that Lanie has but one week to live. Then, you guessed it, the first two predictions come true and Lanie's life becomes a shambles as she tries to ignore the soothsayer's prognostication of her impending doom.

She visits her loved ones, all the while soul searching and contemplating her fast-paced, cold, boring lifestyle. What could have become a clever and unique light-hearted comedy quickly gets bogged down in the predictable and serious melodrama of the message. Somewhere along the line, they forgot that this was supposed to be a romantic comedy.

In one particular scene, Lanie covers a transit strike and performs a drunken rendition of The Stones' "Satisfaction", drawing the rowdy participation of all of all of those around her, including the policemen, picketers, fellow news reporters etc. I actually felt embarrassed for everyone involved. This scene felt so out of place and ridiculous that I couldn't accept the remainder of the movie as being anything other than a superficial and mindless walk through the motions.

The message of this movie is supposed to be about examining what is important in your life and getting your priorities in order. The message I received was to examine a bit more closely the movie I'm about to watch, before actually renting it. The performances of Jolie, Burns, Channing and Shalhoub keep this thing from being totally worthless, but in the end it is nothing more than a shallow and predictable love story with an identity crisis.

I give Life or Something Like It the maximum in the Julia Roberts factor and the screen presence of Jolie keeps it from getting a big zero in the macho factor. If nothing else you can sit and watch Jolie move. Good for the in-laws and acceptable for children.

Frank Wilkins