So, let's see how this film does when it steps up to the plate. It's an inside look at the mean and phony world of Hollywood where one character with integrity is beset on all sides by selfish, stupid jackasses.
Strike one.
New Suit is a comedy that barely averages one legitimate joke every 10 minutes.
Strike two.
The script has far too many characters to begin with and just keeps adding more as it goes along, while never realizing the real point of its story.
Strike three.
Kevin Taylor (Jordan Bridge) is a naïve young man who comes to Hollywood to be a screenwriter and ends up working a low level job in a film production company, the sort of job where he has to wear a tie while he fetches coffee and washes other people's cars. Even though Kevin never demonstrates talent, intelligence or virtues of any other kind, the audience is clearly supposed to identify with him and lament the implied unfairness of his circumstances. I say implied unfairness because nothing bad every happens to Kevin and he's not show to be mistreated in any way.
One day, out of bored and self-righteous spite at being the only person he knows who is not a grasping lemming, Kevin dreams up a screenplay and a mysterious author to make fun of how Hollywood people reflexively lie and can never admit they don't know something. This non-existent script and writer become an overnight sensation with everyone in show business wanting a piece of them, something Kevin's ex-girlfriend Marianne (Marisa Coughlan) uses to advance her own career. Eventually, those two get the past-his-prime head of Kevin's production company in a bidding war against an old rival to buy the illusionary script, with a studio executive emerging out of nowhere to take the side of Kevin's boss. The whole thing ends with a triple fake out where Kevin tries to tell the truth, it turns out not to matter and then that turns out not to matter to Kevin.
Ever since The Player, there's been a slew of films like New Suit and for every one of them that got made, there's got to be another dozen or two scripts written in the same vein. This basically has become the plot that every struggling writer in Hollywood turns to and that every self-loathing producer tries to make at some point. In fact, New Suit assumes you've already seen the story before, glossing over the same clichéd ground so quickly and perfunctorily that it's more like an outline than a script. I mean, it can't even be bothered to show Kevin's transformation from hopeful author to indifferent wage slave. It simply introduces him, throws him in bed with Marianne, then jumps forward 18 months and the viewer is automatically supposed to know and dread what that year and a half was like.
This is also one of those comedies that can't be bothered to tell jokes. Now, a film doesn't have to throw a gag at you every 15 seconds like an assembly line sit-com, but there needs to be some humor coming from somewhere. These characters, however, say and do very little that's funny. Maybe if you're in the movie business, you might smile knowingly at things you see in New Suit that resemble stuff from your real life but that's it. Without that frame of reference, the viewer is left with no set up, no punch line, no nothing.
The multitude of overlapping and redundant roles in the script is sort of the rancid icing on the rotten cake. Kevin and Marianne are sort of essential, but why does Kevin have three separate doucebag friends working similar jobs to his? Why does he have not one but two immediate bosses at the production company? Why does the movie have to throw in an older writer for Kevin to bond with? If this tales is meant to be about Kevin, why is his faded producer boss not enough of an adversary/obstacle for him to overcome? Why is the studio executive introduced above and beyond the producer, squeezing Kevin's two immediate bosses off the stage for the final act? It's like writer Craig Sherman came up with New Suit in segments, using different characters to tell each individual part of the story, and never bothered to look at what happened when all those parts were hooked together.
Worst of all is that this is supposed to be a take off on The Emperor's New Clothes about how image is all that matters in Hollywood, even when people know that image is all it is. But the real point of this production is that it's guys like Kevin who are the real mover and shakers in Hollywood. That's because, as they're portrayed here, guys like Kevin are the only people in town who ever have to know anything. All the higher ups rely on guys like Kevin to give them the information they need, unwittingly trusting everything they are told. That's the reason the whole fake script takes off and might have been the premise of a much better and funnier movie.
Unless you're a struggling drone in the film industry and want to see some poorly conceived wish fulfillment on screen, there's no need to try on New Suit.
Strike one.
New Suit is a comedy that barely averages one legitimate joke every 10 minutes.
Strike two.
The script has far too many characters to begin with and just keeps adding more as it goes along, while never realizing the real point of its story.
Strike three.
Kevin Taylor (Jordan Bridge) is a naïve young man who comes to Hollywood to be a screenwriter and ends up working a low level job in a film production company, the sort of job where he has to wear a tie while he fetches coffee and washes other people's cars. Even though Kevin never demonstrates talent, intelligence or virtues of any other kind, the audience is clearly supposed to identify with him and lament the implied unfairness of his circumstances. I say implied unfairness because nothing bad every happens to Kevin and he's not show to be mistreated in any way.
One day, out of bored and self-righteous spite at being the only person he knows who is not a grasping lemming, Kevin dreams up a screenplay and a mysterious author to make fun of how Hollywood people reflexively lie and can never admit they don't know something. This non-existent script and writer become an overnight sensation with everyone in show business wanting a piece of them, something Kevin's ex-girlfriend Marianne (Marisa Coughlan) uses to advance her own career. Eventually, those two get the past-his-prime head of Kevin's production company in a bidding war against an old rival to buy the illusionary script, with a studio executive emerging out of nowhere to take the side of Kevin's boss. The whole thing ends with a triple fake out where Kevin tries to tell the truth, it turns out not to matter and then that turns out not to matter to Kevin.
Ever since The Player, there's been a slew of films like New Suit and for every one of them that got made, there's got to be another dozen or two scripts written in the same vein. This basically has become the plot that every struggling writer in Hollywood turns to and that every self-loathing producer tries to make at some point. In fact, New Suit assumes you've already seen the story before, glossing over the same clichéd ground so quickly and perfunctorily that it's more like an outline than a script. I mean, it can't even be bothered to show Kevin's transformation from hopeful author to indifferent wage slave. It simply introduces him, throws him in bed with Marianne, then jumps forward 18 months and the viewer is automatically supposed to know and dread what that year and a half was like.
This is also one of those comedies that can't be bothered to tell jokes. Now, a film doesn't have to throw a gag at you every 15 seconds like an assembly line sit-com, but there needs to be some humor coming from somewhere. These characters, however, say and do very little that's funny. Maybe if you're in the movie business, you might smile knowingly at things you see in New Suit that resemble stuff from your real life but that's it. Without that frame of reference, the viewer is left with no set up, no punch line, no nothing.
The multitude of overlapping and redundant roles in the script is sort of the rancid icing on the rotten cake. Kevin and Marianne are sort of essential, but why does Kevin have three separate doucebag friends working similar jobs to his? Why does he have not one but two immediate bosses at the production company? Why does the movie have to throw in an older writer for Kevin to bond with? If this tales is meant to be about Kevin, why is his faded producer boss not enough of an adversary/obstacle for him to overcome? Why is the studio executive introduced above and beyond the producer, squeezing Kevin's two immediate bosses off the stage for the final act? It's like writer Craig Sherman came up with New Suit in segments, using different characters to tell each individual part of the story, and never bothered to look at what happened when all those parts were hooked together.
Worst of all is that this is supposed to be a take off on The Emperor's New Clothes about how image is all that matters in Hollywood, even when people know that image is all it is. But the real point of this production is that it's guys like Kevin who are the real mover and shakers in Hollywood. That's because, as they're portrayed here, guys like Kevin are the only people in town who ever have to know anything. All the higher ups rely on guys like Kevin to give them the information they need, unwittingly trusting everything they are told. That's the reason the whole fake script takes off and might have been the premise of a much better and funnier movie.
Unless you're a struggling drone in the film industry and want to see some poorly conceived wish fulfillment on screen, there's no need to try on New Suit.