If you need a few cheap laughs...

If you're one of those people who is willing to spend your movie money on unintentionally hilarious films, please allow me to direct your attention to STEALTH, coming out July 29. It stars Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Sam Shepard and (in what amounts to a "special guest star" appearance) Oscar winner Jamie Foxx, playing the kind of stereotypical jive-talking, booty-chasing smart-aleck role he's unlikely to be doing much of in the future, now that he's a Serious Actor. It was directed by Rob Cohen, who has previously offered us such brain food as THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS and the original XXX. Why Vin Diesel is not in this, I do not know, but it's his loss. Set in the "near future," it's an outrageously overwrought would-be thriller in which Lucas, Biel and Foxx play top-grade Naval Air Force pilots forced to work with a new sort of super-jet that's controlled by a highly sophisticated electronic brain. When the wonder plane is struck by lightning, its programming becomes jumbled and it begins (you guessed it) to develop a mind of its own, even picking out its own targets to attack. Lucas, Biel and Foxx must "race against time" to disable the maverick machine before it creates international chaos; meanwhile, Shepard, as their commanding officer, mopes around his office, looking anguished. I couldn't figure out if it was because he was worried about his team or if it was because he was terrified summer moviegoers might recognize him as the once-celebrated author of FOOL FOR LOVE and TRUE WEST. This is not a credit Mr. Shepard will keep on his resume for very long, you can bet. The movie is pure nonsense from start to finish -- even finding a way to throw in gratuitous bathing suit shots of Lucas and Biel! -- and the dialogue is priceless. It's a shame MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 isn't still around: Mike and the gang would have a field day with this. But perhaps you and your most caustic friends can have just as much fun mocking it. Heaven knows the audience I saw it with found plenty to ridicule, especially the soon-to-be classic scenes involving a burning parachute, a chase through North Korea and a battle between Lucas and a doctor who tries to give him an unwanted shot. I interviewed Lucas -- a very well-mannered, intelligent guy -- at the Toronto Film Festival last September and he mentioned several of the upcoming projects he was working on. Amazingly, he said not a word about STEALTH, although it must have been "in the can" by that time. Hmmmm... wonder why? But just because he's ignoring it doesn't mean you should, especially if you need a few cheap chuckles.