Dr T and the Women... a review

I'm that disheartened with Chatham Town FC at the moment, that today's post is a review of a Richard Gere film, released in 2000.



For those of you not in the know, things seem to be going very awry at the Theatre of Slapstick Comedy. In fact, to paraphrase Malcolm Tucker, I feel like asking OB and Lew if they managed to get the piano into the ground without dropping it, things are so fast becoming like Laurel and Hardy.



This week saw a fifth league defeat on the bounce, 2-0 at home to Sittingbourne, in a game that marked Brendon Cass's last contribution to the red and black. It was announced on Friday that he'd gone to Folkestone, who had, according to Stan Laurel made him an offer to good to refuse. That to me implies cash - but all of us in the know are more than aware of the CVA that Folkestone are currently subject to, which sort of rules that out. The next day, Cass is on the sight, blaming the last two months.



There was the glimmer of hope, or maybe a two pence piece mistakenly thrown into a sewer by a blind man with a wish, in the form of a scrappy 2-1 win over Whyteleafe at TOSC on Saturday, a result that elevated the Chats back to 12th in the league. Perhaps its overly doom and gloom, but with rumours abound of some first teamers not training (in my opinion they're welcome to not train - they just shouldn't expect to get picked for a game, or get paid), the first team management not attending the reserves game despite a free afternoon the other week, and the departure of the experienced Tommy Osbourne to the toadrags at Thamesmead before he'd even played a game for us sums up everything that's wrong.

We started the year with so much promise. OB threatened a play off spot. He wanted promotion. But, in my opinion, too many players who epitomise Chatham Town have been left to walk out of the ground to be replaced by lesser players with bigger, uglier attitudes, and the club is not the same anymore. Plenty of people had been asking about on the pitch discipline problems before it got very ugly last month, when newbie John Wilfort landed a seven match ban for two incidents of violent conduct in concurrent games. Yes, we needed a replacement for Steve Best. But Bestie was hard midfielder with integrity. A hard streak in the team is essential. But when its completely disproportionate, its out of order. We've not got a reputation as a team of thugs. It needs to stop.

So, moving on... the centre piece of my weekend, wasn't Chatham vs Leafe, but a much forgotten and understandably maligned Richard Gere vehicle, Dr T and the Women, released in 2000.

The movie, directed by the late Robert Altman, has Gere in the understandably under used film role of gynaecologist. He's a troubled modern guy with a mentally ill wife, Farah Fawcett, who two children and twenty five years of marriage later, takes off all her clothes in a mall. Sectioned, or the US equivalent, it takes all of a month for him to fall for high foreheaded golf pro Helen Hunt, and then discover that his eldest daughter, soon to be wed Kate Hudson, is a lesbian. Then follows a scene in which Gere, managing to portray absolutely no emotion on his face that belies his lack of hair dye, drives headlong into a twister, and lands in Mexico for his shot at redemption. But redemption for what? The film itself? Gere could do with a slice of it. For a man who's made a career out of "acting", a quick look at his IMDB scores makes for a shock. I can't find a single film with him as lead that rates over 7/10. This is mediocrity only so far achieved at such a high salary by Sandra Bullock.

Its actually the worst film I've ever seen. There is no chance of emotional attachment, either positive or negative to any of the characters. In fact, given the chance to either punch or kiss any of them, I'd take neither, and go for a stroll around a dated shopping centre, preferring the promise of rubbish card shops and mobile phone stores to a moment in the company of any of them. Altman did some fine work apparently. This isn't it. This film is to cinema what a bad Coldplay album is to music. A total waste of all the genius and artistic development of the medium over decades. It could not have been worse even if it had Steve Guttenburg playing every role into a 90's Sharp Viewcam. Watch it and see what I mean, but don't say I didn't warn you.