Steve Zahn in "Happy, Texas."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film an: Stars: Jeremy Northam and Steve Zahn Director: Mark Illsley Rated: 104 minutes Length: PG-13, with profanity, sexual references

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Nov. 5, 1999) -- In classic comic form, Happy, Texas presents two hapless guys who jump from the frying pan into the fire.

The frying pan is the Texas State Penitentiary, from which Harry Sawyer (Jeremy Northam) and Wayne Wayne (Steve Zahn) escape as the film opens.

The fire is a quaint, dusty Texas town named Happy, where Harry and Wayne show up under assumed names -- and are mistaken for two beauty pageant producers who've been hired by the town.

The citizens have long hoped to qualify their little girls in the Little Miss Fresh-Squeezed Pre-Teen Beauty Pageant -- and the two cons are supposedly the "experts" who'll provide the secrets of beauty pageant success.

In addition, the experts are known to be gay. That means our heroes must not only hide their identities, but also must squelch their raging, long-confined heterosexuality.

It doesn't help that both guys soon find themselves working alongside the town's two most eligible women -- a local banker (Ally Walker) and a school teacher (Illeana Douglas).

There is an "up" side for the boys: The town also features an old-fashioned, easy-to-crack bank. As they prepare Happy, Texas for the pageant, they also make plans to rip off the bank.

If all that isn't fertile ground for laughs, I can't imagine what is. Director and co-writer Mark Illsley takes full advantage, creating an often-hilarious small-town saga with the sort of satirical flavor Preston Sturges routinely brought to his classic screwball comedies of the '40s.

Northam, an Englishman, is an odd choice as the American convict Harry Sawyer, but he brings a romantic aura to the part and makes an effective straight man opposite the utterly wacky Zahn.

With his sandy hair askew and his moustache overgrown, Zahn is a bona fide comic scene stealer. He's already fondly remembered by fans of Out of Sight and That Thing You Do!, but Wayne Wayne is his largest, most fully realized role to date.

Whether Wayne Wayne is using two left feet to teach 5-year-old girls how to dance or trying vainly to remove the fog from his dim brain, the character is the comic soul of Happy, Texas.

But laughs are also generated by Douglas, as the sexually repressed school teacher, and by the always wonderful William H. Macy (of Fargo fame) as the town sheriff, who's got a few sexual issues of his own to resolve.

By the time this zany film is over, the town in Texas isn't all that's happy.