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The 2000 Movie Project: 'The Big Tease' is the Most Forgotten Movie of the Year 2000

The latest entry in my critical assessment of movies of the year 2000 is one of the lost movies of the last 20 years.

By Sean PatrickPublished 4 years ago 5 min read
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We are at the beginning of our exploration of film form in the year 2000 and it is likely too early to identify a particular trend, aside from bad movies, lots of bad movies early in this century, I’m looking at you Supernova and Next Friday. But if I were to force the discovery of a theme perhaps one that stands out is fumbling attempts at experimenting with film form. In Next Friday, that meant employing some of the most awkward fourth wall breaking voiceover I think I’ve ever experienced.

In this entry, the 2000 comedy The Big Tease is notable only for its experiment in film form, the mockumentary. Taking a cue from the cult favorite Waiting for Guffman, this Scotland to Los Angeles fish out of water story takes the form of a BBC documentary about a hairdresser taking part in a competition that presages the oddballs and weirdos of Christopher Guest’s Best in Show yet feels like that films least impressive imitator.

The Big Tease is an incredibly clumsy entry in the mockumentary genre. It’s often impossible to tell when this supposed fly on the wall documentary is in documentary mode and when the characters are supposed to be off camera. You might consider this a nitpick but when a camera is already in a place where the characters have never been before and the characters are acting as if the camera has been following them, it’s jarring.

On top of that, we are told that this is a ‘fly on the wall’ documentary, a supposed real life observation. Yet, Chris Langham’s filmmaker character repeatedly shows up on camera and directly participates in the action, prompting Craig Ferguson’s Crawford to address him directly. If this was intended as a joke on Langham’s character, a puncturing perhaps of the persona of a self-serious documentary filmmaker, the joke doesn’t land and instead underlines the slipshod parody of The Big Tease.

Crawford Mackenzie posits himself as Scotland’s best hairdresser. This designation is enough to earn Crawford an invitation to Hollywood where he believes he is to be part of famed hairdressing competition judged by the elite of the hairdressing world including Paul Mitchell and Jose Eber. Yes, there was a time when hairdressers were actual celebrities. They’ve since been usurped by tattoo artists.

Poor Crawford however, has failed to actually read his mail. The invitation to Hollywood from HAG, (UGH) the Hairdressers Awards Guild(?)-add your own tortured acronym definition, they call it HAG for the most obvious reason- is in reality a form letter invitation to watch the awards presentation from the audience. He’s not been invited as a participant. This also means that his travel from Scotland, expensive hotel room and rental car, are not covered by the competition.

Financially busted, Crawford is undaunted in his effort to get into the competition which becomes the driver of the plot until the final act, centered on the competition. Along the way, Crawford enlists the help of Donal Logue as his personal driver/assistant and a Hollywood power player, an agent named Candy (Frances Fisher), who begins to pull strings for him after he gives her a makeover.

My biggest worry in revisiting The Big Tease was stoked by my last entry on Ron Shelton’s Play it to the Bone. That film, though incredibly different from The Big Tease, engages is some of the most offensive and played out homophobia imaginable. Knowing that I was following that experience with a comedy about an effete hairdresser had me on edge for another potential theme of the year 2000, gay bashing.

Thankfully, despite the thudding HAG joke I mentioned earlier, The Big Tease is rather respectful of Crawford’s gay identity. I could focus on some problematic elements, such as Crawford inferred as having slept with Candy, she has throwaway dialogue indicating that sex did not happen, but for the most part, The Big Tease doesn’t portray Crawford’s sexuality in an ugly or defamatory fashion.

Ferguson’s burlesque of the supposed gay accent isn’t great but the character of Crawford is also proudly, openly, gay and that isn’t treated as a joke. For the year 2000 that is downright woke. Yes, he is a flamboyant gay hairdresser which is certainly an insidious cliche but to the credit of Ferguson and director Kevin Allen, that cliche is only surface level and we are always invited to like and identify with Crawford. He may be pompous but he’s also pathetic in a way you sympathize with.

Now, if only we laughed with Crawford more. The style of The Big Tease is a failure for being clumsy but the movie as a whole fails because it is a comedy that is rarely very funny. Ferguson’s Crawford isn’t an unpleasant character but he rarely earns more than a smile in The Big Tease. Supporting players David Rasche as Crawford’s hairdressing rival, Stig, and Charles Napier as a powerful Senator and businessman, get the biggest laughs in The Big Tease but they aren’t on screen all that often.

In the end, you can sense that The Big Tease had a big idea behind it, inspired by the pathetic but sweet characters of Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman, but it lacks that films bite and wit. Guffman may have lampooned oversized small time dreams but it came from a perspective of very sharp satire. The Big Tease on the other hand has similar aspiration but none of the skill or wit.

Failing in both style and humor, The Big Tease barely begins to justify my having written about it. As I come to the end of this review, I am seriously wondering why I even bothered writing about this movie. No one remembers The Big Tease. I would not be surprised if Craig Ferguson himself had forgotten he’d made The Big Tease. The box office didn’t remember The Big Tease either where in January of 2000 it opened to $29,010 on 4 screens and was quietly pulled from theatrical release after less than a month.

Nevertheless, I committed myself to exploring the movies of the year 2000 and The Big Tease was… certainly a movie that came out in the year 2000.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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