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Martin

a shrink comedy that needs some doctoring

By Ellen Fox

Special to the Tribune

Published January 16, 2004

Early on in the low-budget comedy "Martin & Orloff," its titular male duo--an angst-ridden marketing peon and his calmly outrageous shrink--are forced to attend what promises to be some painful dinner theater, starring would-be bad actresses Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch and Janeane Garofalo.

Perusing the night's bill, Dr. Orloff announces dryly, "Finally. A play about Southern ladies in a beauty parlor."

That's quite a jab, considering that the premise of "Martin & Orloff"--a movie about a straight-laced schmo who gets hijacked by a more adventurous counterpart--isn't half as original as that.

That's OK, though, it's all in the execution, right?

Unfortunately, this primitively shot indie, penned by Ian Roberts, Katie Roberts and Matt Walsh of New York's Upright Citizens Brigade Theater--which grew out of Chicago's mid-1990s improv comedy scene--doesn't offer much of a new twist on an old formula.

Some of the humor is amusing, some of it isn't, but at least the pace trips along so blithely that, just as you start to contemplate the freshness date on a joke, they've moved on. Though the comedy mostly veers between the juvenile and the dry, there's enough of a range here (scatology, ethnic caricatures, cameos, absurdism, black comedy) that you'll chuckle at least once during the proceedings--but probably not much more than that.

Ian Roberts plays pitiful Martin Flam, who designs promotional costumes for an oily, maniacal boss (played by fellow UCB-founder Matt Besser) at a New York marketing firm.

Having recently attempted suicide, and dismayed by the prospect of creating a spare-rib costume for a maniacal Chinese food magnate, Martin visits psychiatrist Dr. Orloff (Walsh), who drags him on the kind of madcap adventure that all urban depressives suspect is simmering right under their noses, but which they can't tap into without help.

As a tour guide to New York's flipside, Walsh's Orloff is a wonderful invention: a smart, deadpan, id-driven jerk of the Ferris Bueller or Hawkeye Pierce variety, whose cohorts include strippers (played by "Saturday Night Live's" reliably zany Amy Poehler and "Third Watch's" refreshingly human Kim Raver) and a deranged Desert Storm vet ("Dr. Katz's" Jon Benjamin).

But as Orloff's exasperated patient and foil, Roberts' Martin is another story. Some actors relish playing the straight-man archetype, but Roberts--who played a cheerleading choreographer in "Bring It On"--doesn't take well to being the un-funny side of the equation. Roberts has but one brow-beaten expression, and for all his years spent doing comedy with Walsh, the two exhibit shockingly little shared chemistry.

The problem is that the movie is, in comedy parlance, a "bit fest"; it tries to generate its humor with a barrage of bits, or external gags--rather than letting it emerge organically, as these Chicago-bred comedians should well know, from the deepening interaction between its two leads. When these largely immutable characters finally come around, they seem to come around all at once, rather than at last.

There's nothing wrong with a "bit fest." But if you've watched movies by Abrahams and Zucker ("Airplane!"), the Wayans brothers or Mike Myers, you know that success in such comedies rides entirely on how fresh the bits are--and, while intermittently amusing and always watchable, there's still too much stale material here.

Even at the time of "Martin & Orloff's" filming, back in July 2001, action-movie references and macabre scenes underscored with peppy music were about as inventive as Southern ladies in a beauty parlor.

`Martin & Orloff'

(star)(star)1/2

Directed by Lawrence Blume; written by Ian Roberts, Katie Roberts and Matt Walsh; photographed by David Phillips; edited by Jay Freund; production designed by Dina Goldman; music by Roy Nathanson and Bill Ware; produced by Blume, Linda Moran, Rene Bastian and Gill Holland. A Spit and Glue Distribution and Tashmoo Productions release; opens Friday at the Music Box Theatre. Running time: 1:27. No MPAA rating.

Martin Flam .......... Ian Roberts

Dr. Orloff ........... Matt Walsh

Patty ................ Amy Poehler

Donna ................ Katie Roberts

Keith ................ Jon Benjamin


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