Review: Stretch

Boredom is not an option when watching Stretch, which seems to have been constructed for an audience with the shortest of attention spans. This is not a knock on Joe Carnahan's B-movie; if anything, the manic pace elevates the increasingly uncontrollable series of unfortunate events.

Patrick Wilson is Stretch, a struggling actor currently making ends meet as a limo driver. A former drug, booze and gambling addict, he has straightened up and flown right thanks to the angelic Candace (Brooklyn Decker), who collides into and then out of his life. Resolved to stop digging himself deeper into a rut, he finds himself smack dab in the middle of a day where nothing but trouble arises.

Under attack from a rival limo service headed up by an enigmatic figure sporting a blow-dried platinum mane and stonewashed jeans, Stretch's boss pretty much threatens to fire him unless he gets his act together. Added incentive comes in the form of Stretch's bookie who wants him to pay his debt of six thousand dollars by midnight or else. Banking on some generous tips and working off the leads given him by dispatcher Charlie (Jessica Alba), Stretch picks up his first client, none other than David Hasselhoff himself. "I once forcibly sodomised a Vietcong colonel with a stick grenade because he placed an ancestral curse on me...that's how deep I roll," the Hoff proclaims. The line makes no sense whatsoever but it's typical badass sputterings from writer-director Carnahan, so roll with it.

Next up is the self-absorbed Ray Liotta, who instructs Stretch to return the prop police badge and gun back to the set. Sure thing, says Stretch, but then jackpot: billionaire whiz kid Roger Karos (Chris Pine) requires his services. This is a guy known to tip thousands for a mere airport ride. So what if he parachutes down onto the windshield of Stretch's limo, clad in nothing but goggles, sneakers and a jockstrap? So what if he asks Stretch to retrieve a briefcase from a nightclub and get it back in his possession within 99 minutes? So what if he's being investigated for money laundering and may be the target of an FBI sting operation? The possibility of a six thousand dollar tip is enough for Stretch to do his bidding.

Carnahan, whose earlier works Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane and Smokin' Aces, mined a similar vein, puts the pedal to the metal and goes balls-to-the-wall with Stretch. His unadulterated exuberance infects the whole venture. While the movie strains logic and plausibility, it fulfills its duty to entertain.

Wilson and Pine do some of their best work here. Pine, practically unrecognisable behind the scraggly beard, gives himself over to the role of the coked-up, completely berserk billionaire with gusto. Wilson, essentially playing the straight man, grounds the film as the sarcastic but sweet Stretch. One fun scene has him bluffing his way out of a dangerous showdown with a shady nightclub owner and his bevy of bodyguards by using Liotta's fake police badge and summoning his acting skills to the fore. Revelling in the play, Stretch goads, "Come on, Crayola, you wanna colour or what?" before turning to the burly musclemen and coolly instructing, "Make a lane, make a lane."

Stretch

Directed by: Joe Carnahan

Written by: Joe Carnahan

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Chris Pine, Ed Helms, James Badge Dale, Brooklyn Decker, Jessica Alba, David Hasselhoff, Ray Liotta