Performance Review: Pam Grier in "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" (2002)

I don't know why I'm doing this, so please, bear with me. The actress up next in the review spotlight is....

....Pam Grier in The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)

Okay, first of all, I happen to like this film. It was critically lambasted when it was released and still is to this day, yet I still think that it is just fun to watch; breezy, cool, and mindless eye candy. It's far from a perfect film (ya think?), but there are much worse films out there, so I can't complain that much. Anyway the film follows Pluto (Eddie Murphy in a performance that coasts simply on his charm and charisma, but it's nice) a night club owner from the future who gets involved with some serious gangstah's while on the moon. While on the run and hiding out, he comes across his protective mother (Grier) who wants to help him in his time of need.

She's the cool kind of mom, the kind that wears futuristic styles of clothing, and is an excellent shot when it comes to using her trusty Star Wars-ish blaster/gun thingy. Truth be told, Grier hardly even gives a performance at all.

This isn't her fault, but the character is incredibly underwritten and she has less than five minutes of screen time. I almost feel that most of her performance was left on the cutting room floor, due to the fact that she has but one lengthy scene, then just pops back again about twenty five minutes later. The script never expands her character to let her be a bigger part of the plot, but instead uses her as a mere device.

It's too bad, really. Grier shows Flura's need to get her only son off the moon and away from trouble, insisting that "he's got listen to his mother". But Grier's character could have also had made the movie better just from her presence of being their more often. She's sassy and smooth, and the movie really could have used some more of her.

She's only given one scene to get all dramatic and emotional, but again, its hardly enough. Come to think of it, this reminds me of Ruby Dee and her Oscar-nominated performance in American Gangster. Sure Dee had a tad more to do and she leaves a much bigger imapact when she's gone (SLAP!), but both deliver performances that you wish there was more of and are restricted to tiny appearences.

There may not be much on her plate, but at least Grier gives us a taste of what could have been....