One Night at McCool's | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Harald Zwart |
Produced by |
Michael Douglas Allison Lyon Segan |
Written by | Stan Seidel |
Starring |
Liv Tyler Matt Dillon Paul Reiser John Goodman Michael Douglas Andrew Silverstein |
Music by | Marc Shaiman |
Cinematography | Karl Walter Lindenlaub |
Edited by | Bruce Cannon |
Production
company |
October Films
As a Furthur Films |
Distributed by | USA Films |
Release date
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Running time
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92 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English Spanish |
Budget | $18 million |
Box office | $13.5 million |
One Night at McCool's is a 2001 American crime comedy film written by Stan Seidel, directed by Harald Zwart, and starring Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser, John Goodman, Michael Douglas, and Andrew Silverstein.
The majority of the film consists of Randy, Carl, and Dehling reciting their separate lovesick accounts of their experiences with Jewel, each narrating over what they consider to be the real version of the recent events. Scenes are often re-enacted twice, with different accounts contradicting each other for comedic effect. For example, when Dehling is narrating, he acts as if he were a completely fair, by-the-book police officer, and Randy is painted as a slimy, macho, abusive thug. When Randy is telling the story, he is the innocent victim and Dehling is shown as a suspicious, prying, hard-nosed cop; Carl is convinced that every woman is in love with him, and during his version of the tale, everyone acts accordingly.
Writer Stan Seidel, who died prior to the film's release, drew much of the film's material from Randy Dana's days as a bartender at Humphrey's Restaurant & Tavern, a college bar located in the midst of St. Louis University.
The film garnered mixed to poor reviews (Rotten Tomatoes rated it at 33%), with Roger Ebert saying that the film "is so busy with its crosscut structure and its interlocking stories that it never really gives us anyone to identify with" but that "it has a lot of fun being a near miss."