Shortcut to happiness
Year of release : 2003
Run time : 1h42m
Genre : Fantasy / Comedy
Cast : Alec Baldwin, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Anthony Hopkins, Dan Aykroyd, Kim Cattrall
The movie was directed by Alec Baldwin under the surname Harry Kirkpatrick. It is based on the short story “ The devil and Daniel Webster” by Stephen Vincent Benet and the play “Scratch” by Archibald MacLeish.
The movie opens with the lead, Bez Stone, writing a children’s book. I personally found it bad, as we see it acted, and the acting is bad too.
Bez works at a men’s store, and is fired after his boss doesn’t like the fact he helped an old man, by buying him an 80 dollars tie with his employee’s discount.
Bez meets with his younger brother, who’s established, and bought their parents a cruise for their 50th anniversary. Although his brother is fine with both of them taking the credit for the 80.000 dollars trip, Bez insists on paying half, but he only has 500 dollars in his bank account. Which he gives to his brother. And now he has no money.
Bez wants to see mister Webster, at his publishing house, whom he calls his editor, but after getting a meeting with him under a false name, the man sees right through him, and tells him writing about the same thing everybody else does, is not true writing. Bez sees a tail in his office, and asks him if it’s fake.
Julius, one of Bez friends, who’s also a writer, and a published author, seems to be bragging about his success, and not care about Bez’s problems.
The very same night Bez is robbed by a gang, who take his laptop with his novel too.
At home, staring in the mirror, he says he’d sell his soul to have what he wants.
He takes the old typewriter out of the closet, and because it’s not working, he throws it out of the window, k1lling an old woman.
His door bell is ringing, and when he opens, a beautiful woman in red, is at the door, who seems to know a lot about him. She says he invited her over, as he said he’d sell his soul to trade places with Julius. She asks him to think carefully of what he wants, so he won’t complain after, he didn’t get it.
He says he wants to be a success, and she grants him his wish, saying he only has 10 years after which she comes for his soul. She even brings back the woman he k1lled with the typewriter.
To sign the contract, he had to have s3x with her.
The next day, he sees she has a mark on her lower back, which she doesn’t like him touching.
After she leaves, a courier comes and he discovers he has a lot of money, when wanting to pay him. The courier brought him a letter from Webster’s publishing company, who wants to publish him.
On the street, women start finding him attractive.
The publishing house gives him a good deal, a new apartment, even a movie deal, but they change his book, pretty much stealing Julius’ book title.
Speaking of Julius, all of a sudden, he’s a fraud, as they found his book plagiarized another. And when Julius confronts him about him stealing his book, he gets hit by a car, and dies.
Bez stops being a good friend, as he starts dodging his friend, Mike (who used to read his manuscripts and tell him if they’re good or not, but now Bez knows what he writes is trash, so he’s embarrassed to show him), who develops a cough, due to smoking, and he always tells him to smoke another cigarette!
He spends his time changing women like socks, and being busy publishing a new book.
He realized it’s been 5 years when he sees the daughter of the woman who was pregnant when he was signed with the publishing house.
He starts thinking he’s not the man he wanted to be, and he doesn’t live the life he thought he’d live when he signed the deal with the devil. So he wants out of the contract, and contacts Webster for advice.
Webster decides to represent him in the case against the devil, as he battled her before.
Bez realizes the tail in Webster’s office is hers.
Although the movie was panned by critics, I didn’t find it bad, it’s like a tv movie. It just felt everything moved very fast, not just for the leading character, but also for the audience, as not much happens, we see the lead being successful (although, ironically the critics hate him), buying new houses, but never enjoying his success, and losing all his friends along the way as he never has time for them. It feels empty, because he has no one to care for and who cares for him, it’s just business all the time.
If you pay attention to the details, Webster’s publishing address is 666 and the security guard at his office has a 666 on his clothes.
I personally think he made his choices, and he should have learnt to deal with them, or become a better person, which ironically he was, before being successful. He did get what he asked for, and everything that happened after, happened because he agreed with everything his publishing house wanted to do, nobody forced him to do anything, he chose to lead the life he did, to sleep around, to alienate his friends.
The acting was good. I liked Jennifer Love Hewitt as the devil.
The soundtrack was Ok, it sounded like the tv soundtrack of a comedy. I didn’t like it when it sounded Jazzy. I felt it didn’t match.
The visual effects were good.
The movie grossed close to 700.000 dollars at the box office, against a budget of 30 million dollars.
It has a 5.4 rating on IMDB, and a 43% popcorn meter on Rotten Tomatoes. There are no critics reviews, and it doesn’t have a Metacritic score of any kind.
The movie has quite a few release dates, Google says July 2003 in the USA, then 2004, and even 2007! It was filmed in early 2001!
You can find the full movie for free, on the Ok.Ru or the YouTube platforms.
Rating : Could have been a contender !