A Dynamic Duo
August 3rd, 2007 | Published in Movie Review
By KANTREAL MONIQUE DANIELS
They finish each other’s sentences. They seem to know each other’s likes and dislikes. They understand and laugh at each other’s jokes.
Perhaps “kindred spirits” would be the best term to describe writer-director David Wain and actor Ken Marino, both of whom helped craft the independent film “Wet Hot American Summer,” which made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001.
Wain and Marino, who were once college roommates, hit it big in the mid-’90s with the sketch comedy troupe “The State,” which ultimately became a series on MTV. Since then the twosome have grown with one another and have continued to collaborate.
“A lot of the time during the writing process I’m thinking of ideas and typing them out,” Wain said recently.
“And I’m making something for us to eat,” Marino said. “Like a pizza or eggplant parmesan.”
And yet this relationship seems to work, possibly even better than a married couple’s. So it comes as no surprise that the comedic duo have combined their talents once again to create “The Ten,” a film which puts a humorous twist on a well-known set of rules, the Ten Commandments.
During a recent interview it was often difficult for a reporter to decipher whether Wain and Marino were being serious about what they were saying or if they were simply being the jokesters that they are.
“[The Ten Commandments] are older than we thought,” Wain deadpanned. “We thought we had discovered this thing, but apparently the Ten Commandments have been around for years.”
“I know for a fact that [Charlton Heston] wrote two of [the Ten Commandments],” Marino added.
Though, Heston may have done the role of Moses justice in the 1967 film “The Ten Commandments,” one doubts that he wrote a commandment or two.
After a 90-second Google search, Wain and Marino said, they learned what all the commandments were and their order of appearance and used them as a launching pad for “The Ten.”
“We didn’t take the Ten Commandments as they were,” Wain said. “We did a little re-work and polish to them.”
Made on a $4 million budget, shot in 40 locations in 28 days and consisting of an all-star cast, the film is an original of its kind.
“It was important to us to do something different that was funny and fresh and made us laugh,” Wain said.
“The Ten” is a bizarre tale of tales narrated by Paul Rudd, who also served as a co-producer. This film includes all Ten Commandments, with overlapping characters and stories.
For example, Adam Brody breaks the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” by becoming an idolized God-like figure and causes his wife, Kelly (Winona Ryder), to leave him.
Later in the film Kelly appears again. After separating from Brody, she then becomes infatuated over a ventriloquist’s wooden puppet, and steals it for her own love fest.
Though Ryder made headlines in December 2001 when she was caught on tape for allegedly stealing from a Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, the fact that she was asked to play out the commandment of “Thou shalt not steal” was a complete coincidence, Wain explained.
“It didn’t occur to me until I spoke to her on the phone and I said, ‘Your commandment is, “Thou shalt not steal,’” and she said, ‘Great,’” he said. “It was a great part for her. And she turned out to be just an amazing actress and completely committed to our silly material and raised it five levels.”
And that’s exactly what this film is — silly.
“We’re not really trying to make any point about religion or anything for that matter,” Wain said.
With that said, Christian groups or whoever for that matter should hold on to their letters of disapproval concerning the film until they see it.
“In my opinion it’s a morality tale,” Marino said. “You break a commandment, you pay your dues.”
Furthermore, aside from Ryder’s character’s zany antics in the film becomes wackier as it progresses, especially, when two neighbors compete against each other to see who can purchase the most CAT scan machines and the big musical number at the end of the film.
“Whether you like it or you don’t, I don’t think it’s a lot like other movies,” Wain said.
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