God shows up in the strangest places

Industrial lubricants provide unlikely entrée to spiritual questions

PETER T. CHATTAWAY
CW film critic

The Big Kahuna, starring Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and Peter Facinelli, is directed by John Swanbeck. Rated R for language.

The Big Kahuna is based on a play (and it shows), but it is profound in a way few films these days could ever hope to be. This is strange, because the film has only three characters to speak of, and they’re all industrial-lubricant salesmen at a weekend convention hoping to close a big deal.

But there are bigger things on their minds as well. During the course of an evening they discuss such issues as God, love and the validity of the tactics they use to promote both material goods and spiritual well-being.

One of the salesmen is a shy born-again Christian named Bob (Peter Facinelli). He accepts the teasing of his co-workers, but also takes a stand, however awkwardly, for his values. When Larry (Kevin Spacey) suggests that they go ogle some women, Bob responds that it is adulterous to even look at a woman lustfully.

Larry goes on to tell Bob that, to a salesman, people are nothing but “functions”; everyone is a potential customer and everything is judged by whether or not it can be used to make a sale. Bob resists this dehumanizing approach to the world.

Larry and his old friend Phil (Danny DeVito) are particularly interested in one corporate executive, who they call “the big kahuna.” Above all else, they must land that one client, so they host a party, hoping to lure him in. At first it appears that he never showed up. But after the party is over, they discover that he did make an appearance, wearing someone else’s name-tag. Not only that, but he became fast friends with Bob.

It turns out “the big kahuna” was quietly grieving the death of his dog, and Bob, not knowing who he was, began to console him. Pressed for information, Bob tells Larry and Phil they never got around to discussing industrial lubricants; instead, Bob used the man’s sadness as a “lead-in” for introducing him to Jesus.

And one of the film’s central questions is whether Bob, in his own way, is treating people as “functions.”

There are no good guys or bad guys in this film; each character has a part of the truth, but could stand to learn from the others. Director John Swanbeck, adapting Roger Rueff’s play Hospitality Suite, doesn’t even try to open it up, but why should he, when the actors he does have are this good? Spacey finds a better mix of sarcasm and subtlety as Larry than he ever did in American Beauty; Facinelli conveys Bob’s callowness without sacrificing his positive points; and DeVito is a revelation as a soul-searcher who knows he needs to make some changes in his life.

Most critics, if they mention the film’s religious elements, have done so only in passing. Perhaps, as Roger Ebert has said, they are blinded by their own secular beliefs.

But make no mistake about it, despite the vulgarities that pepper the script, this is a deeply spiritual film. It does not deny the gospel, any more than it denies the validity of industrial lubricants. But it does challenge us to be honest and humble in our relationships–especially when dealing with matters of the spirit.

LIONS GATE FILMS

There are no good guys or bad guys in this film; each character has a part of the truth, but could stand to learn from the others.

Recommended

Chicken Run, starring the voices of Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha and Jane Horrocks, is directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park. Rated G.

Chicken Run is, hands down, the most delightful film released so far this year. It is also one of the cleverest.
Inspired by classic prisoner-of-war movies like The Bridge on the River Kwai, this claymation film concerns a group of hens who are trapped on a British chicken farm. If they cease to lay eggs, they face certain death. While their many attempts to escape have failed, things begin to look up when a rooster falls out of the sky one night and tells the chickens he can teach them how to fly to safety. One intelligent Ginger, however, suspects he isn’t being entirely honest.