STUDIO: Magnolia
RELEASE DATE: June 27, 2008
STARRING: Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow, Maura Tierney, Peter Facinelli, and Steve Coogan
WRITTEN BY: Peter Tolan
DIRECTED BY: Peter Tolan
GENRE: Comedy
RATING: R

Finding Amanda is an odd dramedy, a mix of very dark themes like alcoholism, sexual abuse, and prostitution with a black comedy edge - not unlike the other creation of its writer/director Peter Tolan, Rescue Me. I love Tolan's work on Rescue Me and have been lucky enough to talk to the amiable fellow (he's the kind of guy who makes it easy to root for him), but it's starting to feel like the chemistry that Tolan and Leary have together on that show may be a once in a lifetime thing (or twice if you consider The Job, an underrated gem that the two worked on before firefighting). Looking over Tolan's screenwriting resume and finding complete duds like My Fellow Americans, What Planet Are You From, Bedazzled, America's Sweethearts, Guess Who, and Just Like Heaven makes one thing crystal clear - Tolan should stay in television. There's something about what he does there that has so much more energy than what he does on the big screen. Peter also wrote for Murphy Brown and The Larry Sanders Show. The disparity between success on TV and in the movies might not be wider for any other writer. His latest, Finding Amanda, doesn't break that pattern. Far from his worst film, but still one that never clicks, Amanda can't find the right tone, ending up more forgettable than funny or dramatic. It makes what Leary and Tolan pull off on FX every week even more remarkable.

The comparisons to Rescue Me may seem unfair, but from the very first act, the dialogue of Taylor Peters (Matthew Broderick) sounds just a shade over from that of Tommy Gavin's. It doesn't help that, like Tommy, Taylor is a recovering alcoholic who has yet to kick his last addiction, gambling. His wife (Maura Tierney) is about to leave him after one horse race too many and he knows he needs some act of redemption. He hears that his niece (Brittany Snow) has been selling her body in Vegas and goes there to try and save her. A man with a thin line between sobriety and his own addiction on a rescue mission in Vegas? Not the best idea. Will Taylor save Amanda? Does Amanda need saving? Can a repetitive sinner survive in a city built on it?

These are clearly great ideas for a movie and, you can see why Finding Amanda completely worked on paper. Sadly, writing about it makes it sound more interesting than it is on-screen. The big problem is that Amanda can never find a tone. It opens with a scene-reading (Taylor is a writer on a hacky TV show) that produces yawns, where our lead character is the only one that laughs. It's prophetic. There are moments in Finding Amanda that are clearly going for comedy (like an over-extended bit between Broderick and Steve Coogan as the casino boss) but fall completely flat. The big problem is that Broderick is horrifically miscast. Even though he seems to pick bad project after bad project lately, I still like the guy and I still root for him, but he doesn't fit the same black comedy edge as Denis Leary. You can almost hear Broderick's dialogue coming out of Leary's mouth and it just doesn't work. Tierney fits in Tolan's universe, but Broderick and Snow flounder. It shows the importance of smart casting. With a different cast and a few screenwriting edits to punch up both the comedy and the drama, Finding Amanda might have worked, but, as is, it's a horse that finishes in the middle of the pack.