THE BIG TEASE

THE BIG TEASE (2000) *1/2

Reviewed 1/27/00

The Big Tease has a title that is ripe for picking on it, but I'll try to resist. Scottish hairdresser Crawford MacKenzie (Craig Ferguson) goes to Los Angeles to try to win the top award, a pair of platinum scissors, in the world's premiere hairstyling competition. When he gets there and after lavishing mucho money on a hotel he thinks the contest is paying for, he finds out he was invited only to be a member of the audience. That does not keep him from trying to get into the contest to attempt to win it. The rest is utterly predictable. The nobody versus the three-time winner, who of course turns out to be pompous and tries to sabotage MacKenzie at every opportunity. There are the Los Angeles jokes, the gay jokes, the joke playing the hairstyling competition as if it were an old west showdown; all obvious. Every character has the depth of a saucer of milk including MacKenzie. And this is what finally brings down the movie. This is a Rocky story with no heart. Everything is played for laughs. MacKenzie talks throughout about his pride for Scotland, but we're never meant to take it too seriously. Ferguson constantly mugs the camera, but has none of the grace and innate self-mockery of say, Sean Hayes (no pun intended). And oh yes, the whole thing is framed as a documentary, which acts as an excuse for poor camera work and editing. Cameos by Drew Carey, Cathy Lee Crosby, Sara Gilbert, and David Hasselhoff, among others.