LOS ANGELES – Special Delivery, the much anticipated biracial romance starring Colin Farrell and former playmate Nicole Narain, fails to keep the viewer’s interest up despite grinding, albeit sincere, performances by its co-stars—and a surprise spin at the end. Farrell and Narain try mightily to flesh out their roles with locker room banter and single entendre humor, but this tedious and predictable comedy never really gets off the floor.
In Special Delivery Farrell plays Johnny Pepperoni, a struggling, would-be actor who supports himself by working as a delivery man for Domino’s Pizza in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Mawr, a leafy, upscale enclave along the storied Main Line. Nicole Narain is LaToya Scott, the bored, neglected young wife of J. Montgomery Scott, a commodities broker and person of color whose drive to succeed in the lily white Main Line drives LaToya to distraction.
One hot and languid summer afternoon LaToya is lounging by the pool enjoying a pre-lunch screw driver. Too lazy to cook, she rings Domino Pizza and orders a large meat-lover’s special. Quicker than you can say, “I wonder if she’ll do the delivery guy?” there stands a sweaty Pepperoni at LaToya’s door.
“Did anybody here order a meat lover’s?” asks Pepperoni with a lopsided Sly Stallone grin.
“I am a meat lover,” replies LaToya with exagerated coyness. “You can come inside while you change, I mean, make change. You’ll melt out there.”
From this lame setup, Special Delivery goes downhill fast. Pepperoni and LaToya progress in a cliched arc from swapping wooden one liners—”I’ve always preferred finger food”—to swapping spit. Soon LaToya is on a pizza diet three afternoons a week, until her husband comes home early from the office to surprise her with flowers one day.
Following an ugly separation, LaToya moves to a small apartment in Berwyn, a less-tony enclave further west on the Main Line. She attempts to support herself by selling real estate. Pepperoni, meanwhile, leaves for Hollywood, where he gets his big break, co-starring with Scientologist Tom Cruise in Minority Report. When Pepperoni returns to Philadelphia on a promotional tour, LaToya manages to find her way to his hotel.
“I’m looking for the Pizza Man,” she says when Pepperoni opens the door.
“Meat lovers, I presume”? he replies.
At this point what had been a pant-by-numbers exercise turns dark and stupid. LaToya has brought a movie camera to the hotel with her, and Pepperoni agrees to make a sex tape, as long as she promises never to show it to anyone. Like that would actually happen in real life. What sort of idiot would leave a potentially embarrassing film in the hands of a woman with whom he essentially has no future? Of course she won’t show it to anybody.
If you can’t believe that, you probably won’t believe the ending to Special Delivery either, an ending that includes a cameo appearance by Jesse Jackson as LaToya’s spiritual advisor. Suffice it to say, this overdone production is enough to make those frozen pizzas with the self-rising crusts look like gourmet fare.
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