Matthew Broderick regains his cinematic stride as a morosely wise-cracking television producer on the skids, ably abetted by Maura Tierney as his much-put-upon wife and Brittany Snow as his perky prostitute niece.
Finding Amanda (2008)
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Reviews Counted:14
Fresh:5
Rotten:9
Average Rating:5.5/10
Consensus: Despite a charming turn by Matthew Broderick, Finding Amanda is too flimsily executed to succeed as a dark comedy.
Synopsis:
From director Peter Tolan, creator of the hit television series Rescue Me, comes Finding Amanda, a hilarious and heartbreaking autobiographical comedy about the compulsions we can’t shake, and the...
From director Peter Tolan, creator of the hit television series Rescue Me, comes Finding Amanda, a hilarious and heartbreaking autobiographical comedy about the compulsions we can’t shake, and the unlikely lengths we’ll go to while trying.
Taylor Mendon (Matthew Broderick) is a television writer and producer working on a low-rated, little-respected half-hour sitcom. Once destined for bigger and better things, Taylor's compulsive gambling, recreational drug use and drinking all conspired to throw his career off the rails. After kicking the alcohol and drugs, he only has one more hurdle...the horses.
His beautiful twenty - year old niece Amanda (Brittany Snow) has her own habit to kick. Living in Las Vegas, working as a "dancer," her family has just discovered she is actually a prostitute, and they suspect hooking for drug money.
On their way home from an emergency family meeting, Taylor's wife Lorraine (Maura Tierney) finds recent racing stubs in Taylor's glove compartment. After years of standing by him, she leaves.
Taylor comes up with a plan: he'll win back his wife by doing the right thing. He'll go to Las Vegas, find Amanda, and deliver her to a rehabilitation center in Malibu. While he’s at it, he might even catch up with some old friends (like slimy casino host Steve Coogan). But besides that, it’s strictly the business at hand—while he's there, he vows, he won't gamble a single cent, but things don’t turn out quite as he’d planned. --© Magnolia Films
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Starring: Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow, Maura Tierney, Peter Facinelli
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow, Maura Tierney, Peter Facinelli, Steve Coogan, Bill Fagerbakke
Director: Peter Tolan
Director: Peter Tolan
Screenwriter: Peter Tolan
Producer: Wayne Rice, Richard Heller
Composer: Christopher Tyng
Studio: Mitropoulos Films
Reviews for Finding Amanda
Broderick’s sunny spin on the deeply flawed Taylor is interesting but eventually defies belief. In the third act, Finding Amanda loses steam altogether.
Written with more bite, the premise might hold up, but as executed here by Tolan, it is a soft-hearted, haphazard mess.
Set mostly in Las Vegas, Finding Amanda offers a vision of confused Americans losing their already shaky bearings in the world’s gaudiest honky-tonk.
A peculiar film, which is really two films fighting to occupy the same space.
The film's tone shifts jarringly from superficial broad comedy to something far darker. And the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold scenario is as old as the profession itself.
Finding Amanda has its wispy charms, including a funny scene when the ecstasy Taylor pops begins to kick in, and later when he encounters a pimp with showbiz aspirations.
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