The Producers 2005 Movie Review

Okay, I should probably clarify right now that I'm not talking about the 1968 movie or the Broadway musical; I'm talking about the 2005 remake. We've established that? Good.

No spoilers, don't worry.

Alright, So I've decided that my new goal should be to review at least one older movie every week, and since it makes the most sense to review movies I watched recently, I'll be talking about the last movie I watched: The Producers.

So, the producers is about a failing Broadway Producer played Nathan Lane, who teams up with an accountant named Matthew Broderick (Bueler? Bueler? Bueler?) to make the worst play ever made after realizing that a producer could actually make more money off a flop then a success. And we have our movie. But wait, it's a musical. That might turn some of you off at first glance, and it turned me off a little when I realized it was a musical about twenty minutes in, but I wound up telling myself to get through it because it's funny. I regret nothing. As a musical, this is good. I can't say its the best I musical-movie ever made, because I know nothing about musicals. My only points of reference are Dr. Horrible and the Lion King. But the songs were, for the most part good. Heck, they were most of the funniest parts of the whole movie, and believe it or not, they were catchy. That's weird too, because a lot of them are really inappropriate and offensive, but it is a Mel Brooks movie (I forgot to mention that, didn't I? It's a Mel Brooks movie), so that's not really a surprise. And like I said, the songs were catchy, and more often then not, funny.


As a movie though, the Producers is still very funny. It starts off with this opening scene with Lane and Broderick's characters and it's hysterical. I won't spoil it, don't worry, but it's hilarious. And then the music starts and they start working on the play, and Will Ferrel shows up as this Neo-Nazi that may be one of his best characters ever. I didn't know he was in this going in either, so when I recognized I geeked out a little bit, and then he started talking, and I laughed and laughed and laughed. It was like that pretty much every time he was on screen, too, I mean he was probably the best part of the movie. Actually, a lot of funny people were in this but I didn't know it in advance; Uma Thurman's (playing herself, i.e. a hot blonde Swedish girl with an obscure name) in this movie, John Barrowman's in it (*fist shakes* Barrowman!), and it's so funny. And then we finally get the play itself, and I had the stupidest grin on my face the whole time, and when I didn't, it was because I was laughing.

Don't get the wrong idea, this isn't a perfect movie: some of the songs and a few of the scenes were so raunchy and offensive that I actually cringed when I saw them, so those parts weren't to pleasant. My biggest problem with the movie, though, is that it's too long. The ending was really drawn out, and it could've easily been 15-30 minutes shorter. There are funny moments in those minutes, it gives that Return of the King kind of feeling, you know, like it ends four times, and then when it doesn't you're like "oh God". Then again, it least it doesn't end twenty times in thirty minutes like what I was comparing it too, twenty-five if you watch the extended version.

In the end, I will say that The Producers Is A Movie Night Classic.

I wanted to bump it up to There Was Much Rejoicing, but I just... couldn't because of the cringe-inducing scenes.