Sometimes, a company logo in the opening credits says it all. Redbox Entertainment – yes, they of the DVD kiosks that still exist – helped produce “Maggie Moore(s).” It’s easy to see why they would want a part of the film: stick the distinctive mugs of stars Jon Hamm and Tina Fey on a tile, and it’s bound to pick up some curious viewers who assume the presence of the “Mad Men” and “30 Rock” stars lend the project some prestige.
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That initial point of customer acquisition is where the ingenuity stops in John Slattery’s feature, his sophomore effort in the director’s chair. Not even Hamm and Fey can save “Maggie Moore(s)” because they feel as if they exist on an entirely different frequency from the rest of the film. The two stars are acting as if they are in an earnest romantic drama while a maelstrom of tonal confusion swirls around them, ranging from hapless clowns to small-town simpletons and even creepy killers.
There’s a clear blueprint for “Maggie Moore(s)” – the Coen Brothers’ legendary crime caper “Fargo,” a pitch-black comedy with noir shadings anchored in a sincere lead. The film’s parenthetical title derives from the multiple corpses that pop up in a small desert town, courtesy of the dim-witted Jay Moore (Micah Stock). This corner-cutting sub-shop owner gets himself into a bind when his wife Maggie discovers some of the unsavory practices in which he dabbles, so he hires the deaf enforcer Kosco (Happy Anderson) to scare her out of disrupting his business.
When that goes disastrously wrong, Jay does the only thing he knows how to do: double down on a bad idea. He tasks Kosco to kill a second woman by the name of Maggie Moore to make the first death look like a mistake and throw investigators off his trail. Luckily for him, the police chief on the case is Hamm’s Jordan Sanders, a man with some other things on his mind. Amidst the uncharacteristic mayhem in his jurisdiction, Chief Sanders craves self-actualization. His probing of the case leads him to spend much time with Fey’s Rita Grace, a casino employee, and Jay’s neighbor, who has some helpful observations to share.
As the chaos of criminality swirls around them, Jordan and Rita begin a tentative relationship that forces him to make realizations about his deepest wants and needs. Hamm and Fey’s interactions frequently lack the slightest hint of winking comedy, making their storyline feel entirely out-of-sync with the rest of “Maggie Moore(s).” It would be one thing if Slattery’s direction or Paul Bernbaum’s script gave them the time to develop these feelings as a dramatic counterweight to the ludicrousness wrought by Jay’s hair-brained scheming. But they seem to view this as cut from the same tonal cloth, and it adds bewilderment to the banality.
Take the scene where Jordan and Rita begin opening up to each other about their hangups and heartbreaks in a hotel room. Their kissing, meant to lead to sex, opens up an opportunity for the two characters to be vulnerable with one another. Out of nowhere, Slattery cuts to a slightly exaggerated news bulletin with someone offering new information on one of the Maggie murders. Then, he immediately goes back to Jordan and Rita doing some gentle pillow talk. Hamm and Fey cannot even have a scene to get into a groove without the rest of “Maggie Moore(s)” careening back in to crash the party.
Slattery falls back on the all-too-common title card “Some of this actually happened” as an excuse for a loose fidelity to truth and tone. “Maggie Moore(s)” feels rudderless as it swings wildly between “truthiness” and outright fiction, trying to create an environment where Micah Stock’s hammy dolt and Nick Mohammed’s understated deputy can coexist. Hamm’s chief is, hypothetically, the anchor of it all. But his internal and external conflicts are too simple for even an actor as gifted as Hamm to flesh out into anything of interest.
Hamm can be a stealth comedic force in any project, adding a slight escalation or modulation of the energy level to alter the stakes. He has a unique talent for somehow fusing the comic man and straight man personas into one. Yet “Maggie Moore(s)” gives him no chance to play either because Slattery cannot decide if his “Mad Men” co-star is the lead of a romantic drama or a heist flick. Marge Gunderson he is not. This is not a 2-for-1 deal like Redbox might push to juice sales – it’s just neither genre convincingly. [D]
“Maggie Moore(s)” releases in theaters and on demand Friday, June 16.
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