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The Producers

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Sex Jokes, Mild Language

The Producers is a remake of a remake -- a Mel Brooks movie turned smash Broadway musical turned Broadway movie musical. In the translation from screen to stage to screen again, we see again why many stage musicals are great movie musicals and many aren't.

This film yearns to have fun, and it largely succeeds, but it's out of its element. On stage, over-the-top elements are what musical comedies thrive on. On screen, they just look over the top. Case in point: a number where several little 'ol ladies fall over in their walkers like a line of dominoes. I'm sure that was a sidesplitter in a live performance. On film it's just trippy.

For those who have seen neither the 1968 original nor the Broadway reincarnation featuring both Lane and Broderick in the title roles: Max Bialystock (Lane) is a washed-up 1940's Broadway producer one footlight away from bankrupcy. His new show, "Funny Boy" -- a musical version of Hamlet -- has just tanked. In steps accountant Leo Bloom (Broderick) to help with his books. Leo, wondering out loud, notices that it's possible for a theatrical producer to make more money off a flop show than a hit, if the show closes quickly and costs less than what investors have put into it. Aha! Max and Leo hatch a scheme to wildly oversell investments in a show so awful, so offensive, it has to close in one night.

They find what appears to be a sure-fire flop in "Springtime For Hitler," poised as a "gay romp" with Der Fuhrer. Will Ferrell is the play's author -- a goose-stepping, leiderhosen-wearing, pigeon-raising neo-Nazi "kraut." Now to find a rotten director. A gay romp deserves nothing less than a flagrantly flaming Roger De Bris (Gary Beach). And for the straight folks, we have Ulla (Thurman), a Swedish bombshell hired as a production secretary who can shake it all over the office (a part not in the original film). Alas, the opening night disaster so carefully plotted fails to materialize as a stunned audience finds more satire than shock value in a singing and dancing Hitler and chorus line of Nazi stormtroopers.

Lane, a stage pro, clearly owns this film. Broderick is a capable singer but lacks his co-star's comic flair and polish. I kept thinking back to how well Gene Wilder pulled off Leo's character in the original film. Thurman is surprisingly good in her role, almost enough for me to forget it's a needless tack-on. Beach and Ferrell are simply hilarious. All these preformances amplify Broderick's weaknesses, and I think the film could have gotten away with trimming a sequence with Ulla and Leo late in the film. The two of them -- and Lane's charater -- both have one musical number too many which adds a lot of dead weight to the third act of the picture.

Mel Brooks (who wrote the book, music and lyrics but didn't direct) buries some inside jokes -- or recycled ones -- for his fans in the film. I counted at least four gags borrowed from Blazing Saddles. Well, if you're going to rip, at least rip from your best material. But Brooks shouldn't have to rip. He is one of the comic masters of the 20th Century and I hate to think he's running out of gas.