COMEDY: THE FORMS: THE SNAPPER, WATCH IT!
Aside from the family relationships, the comedy from Doyle's novel comes from the dialogue, most of which he lifted for the movie. From Sharon's gabbing with her friends to the squabbles at home, most of it is colloquial, short, and funny (also, unprintable). Frears doesn't do anything to hype it, but keeps it simple. The bad part about this is he doesn't give the material a lift the way Parker did to THE COMMITMENTS; this comes off as just a filmed screenplay. Perhaps it was the budget constraints - Frears originally shot this for the BBC, and Miramax picked it up - but it looks more like a kitchen-sink drama than a comedy. Still, the humor comes across. A big part of that, of course is due to the performances. Meaney, who played the same role in THE COMMITMENTS, shows he knows the part well enough that he can handle both the funny parts and the more dramatic ones, especially in the scene where he pleads with Sharon not to leave. And while Kellegher isn't in Meaney's league, she does a good job as the daughter, being smart and vulnerable. THE SNAPPER is a modest entertainment, but it's a good one.
One way of categorizing romantic comedy has always been to denigrate is as a type of "chick flick." Still, it can't be denied that most comedies from a guy point of view tend to be filled with "frat boy" humor. While WATCH IT! has its share of that, it's also insightful when it comes to relationships, making it a superior romantic comedy.
John (Peter Gallagher), who's been drifting from job to job and place to place, comes to Chicago to visit his estranged cousin Michael (Jon Tenney), an attorney. Michael lives with Rick (John C. McGinley, who also co-produced), a salesman, and Danny (Tom Sizemore), who owns a car lot. His first night there, John meets up with Ann (Suzy Amis), a vet and Michael's ex-girlfriend, at a party. Soon, the two of them are going out. When Michael, a notorious womanizer (John chalks it up to Michael's difficult mother), learns of this, he wins Ann back, and since John's afraid of commitment, this puts a strain on all of them. Meanwhile, Rick, who seems happy being a bachelor and a jerk ("I am human cocaine!" he tells John at one point), finds himself unwittingly getting serious with Ellen (Cynthia Stevenson), a schoolteacher.
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