Saving Silverman is a 2001 comedy/action film, directed by Dennis Dugan. It stars Jason Biggs, Steve Zahn, Jack Black, Amanda Peet, Amanda Detmer and R. Lee Ermey. Neil Diamond has a cameo role playing himself. In the film, Darren Silverman's longtime friends try to save him from marrying his lovely but controlling new girlfriend, whose behavior threatens the friends, their band, and Darren's chance at happiness with his lifelong true love.
Outside North America, the film was titled Evil Woman.
Plot
Darren Silverman (Biggs), Wayne LeFessier (Zahn) and J.D. McNugent (Black), best friends since fifth grade and Neil Diamond fans throughout, form a cover band called Diamonds in the Rough. Darren meets the beautiful but domineering psychologist Judith Fessbeggler (Peet) through a chance encounter in a local bar after a band gig. Unfortunately, six weeks into their relationship, Judith is still making Darren watch her change clothes, and though sleeping together is satisfying for her, Darren gets nothing but a sore jaw. Judith isolates Darren from his friends, demands that Darren quit the band, receive humiliating medical procedures and attend relationship counseling under her care. Wayne and J.D. decide to save Silverman from her by attempting to bribe her, arm wrestle her, and shock her with faked photographs of Darren cheating, all to no avail.
The friends, undaunted, try to reunite Darren with his "one and only", Sandy Perkus (Detmer), when she returns to Seattle to take her final vows as a nun. When Darren and Judith announce their engagement, Wayne and J.D. kidnap Judith. When they visit Coach Norton (Ermey) in jail, his advice is that they should just kill her.
Sandy's feelings for Darren are reawakened, but the pair's attempted date is ruined by Darren's preoccupation with Judith. Sandy, disheartened, returns to the convent, but Darren snaps out of it and runs the 30 miles there to win her back.
Chained to an engine block in J.D.'s basement, Judith convinces J.D. he is gay. She knocks him unconscious to steal his keys and escape, only to be tranquilized with a dart gun by Wayne. Returned to the basement, Judith seduces Wayne into releasing one of her hands, so she escapes again. She runs to Darren's house in time to see him kiss Sandy, but shames him into confessing his engagement to Judith. Sandy, disheartened, returns to the convent again. Darren has Wayne and J.D. arrested.
After escaping from jail with the help of Coach Norton, J.D. and Wayne rush to the convent on the brink of Sandy's final vows as a nun. They convince her that Darren still loves her. They then kidnap Neil Diamond to help Darren and Sandy reunite. At the wedding, Neil stalls the proceedings with song while Wayne and Judith beat each other up (as love play), Darren and Sandy reunite, and J.D. arrives holding Coach in his arms, and come out as gay to each other.
On stage at the Neil Diamond concert that night, the priest weds Darren to Sandy, Wayne to Judith, and J.D. to Coach; the entire cast sings Holly Holy.
Cast
Film culture
This film falls within a cross-genre film type from the late 1990s and early 2000s in which grooms are saved, or nearly saved, from distasteful marriage.[1]
Production
Saving Silverman was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia[2] at a cost of USD$22 million.[citation needed]
Reception
Reviews of the film were broadly negative, earning the film a 16% critic rating at Rotten Tomatoes[3] and 22/100 at MetaCritic.com.[4] Box office revenues were low. Worldwide theatrical gross was $26,086,706.[5] Rental income was $21.75M[6] for VHS and $5.19M for DVD.[7]
Alternate Versions
When the film was released on home video, two versions were released - the PG-13 theatrical cut and the uncensored R-Rated cut. The R-Rated cut adds in two additional scenes, but most of the changes are to dialogue and minor occurrences in scenes (both language and footage-wise.) For instance, in the scene where JD and Wayne get prostitutes to incriminate Darren and force him to break up with Judith, they wear tops in the PG-13 version, but are topless in the R-Rated cut. Likewise, the line "Die, replacement friends!" in the PG-13 version becomes "Fuck you, replacement friends!" in the uncensored cut.
Tagline
- They swore nothing could come between them. Then she came along...
- They swore nothing would come between them. Then evil walked in the door - From Evil Woman version
- 2 Best Friends + 1 Girlfriend = WAR
- They've sworn to save Silverman.
References
External links
