Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

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Live Free or Die

New Hampshire deserves better than this

By TOM MEEK | March 28, 2007

2.0 Stars

Live Free or Die

Seinfeld writers Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin conceived this project as a TV series, which is where it should have stayed. The backwoods setting and the bungling pair of Class A screw-ups call to mind Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket by way of the Anne Heche TV series Men in Trees. The boonies here are a working-class podunk in New Hampshire (hence the title), where going-nowhere slacker John “Rugged” Rudgate (Aaron Stanford, Pyro in the X-Men series) reinvents himself as a bad-ass hood. No one buys his delusional shtick except for Jeff Lagrand (Paul Schneider), an oafish fem fop who spent time in special ed — basically Kramer on valium. The George-and-Lenny tandem concoct a battery of petty get-rich schemes, all of which backfire. Along the way a few folks die “comical deaths.” None of it’s funny, and that includes Rudgate’s My Name Is Earl chest beating. Kevin Dunn hits the mark as the police chief; Zooey Deschanel wastes her time as Lagrand’s sister.

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