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And if the transplanted title does no justice in making clear which of the Bard’s plays this is, it might be a helpful fact to know most of the movie’s action takes place in or around the fast-food joint McBeth’s. Set in the 1970s, the inventive blueprint for the conception of a Drive-Thru is the motivation for lots of secrecy, murder, back-stabbing, and all of the other ingredients (plus MSG) of a Shakespearean play. Although the story of “Macbeth” has comedic situations and barbed elements, in essence, it is a tragedy and thus by entirely renovating it into a pure laffy-taffy comedy, the vehicle is strained. The burden is further enhanced inasmuch as director Billy Morrissette takes the anserousness of the comedy too seriously and in his head, still thinks of it as the Master’s prose. The movie has its share of witty, original translations — if not already apparent through the diversity and recklessness of the casting. One of the better pairings, in the wrong context, is with Timothy “Speed” Levitch and Andy Dick as part of the dumbed down Explanatory Chorus and mischievous orbs or sorts. (The trio is completed by the indifferent Amy Smart.) Preference, of course, is given to the bumbling, distracted and Epicurean Christopher Walken, whose autonomous fission almost grants him his own movie.

With James Le Gros and Maura Tierny.

[Redeemable.]

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originally posted: 10/05/02 21:47:36
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