THE MOGULS (UK)
aka THE AMATEURS (USA)
Year: 2005
USA: First Look Pictures
UK: UIP (UK)
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Ted Danson, William Fichtner, Patrick Fugit, Lauren Graham, Glenne Headly Tim Blake Nelson, Joe Pantoliano, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Director: Michael Traeger
Countries: USA / Germany
USA & UK: 96 mins
USA Rated: R for sexual content and language
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language and sex references
USA Release Date: 7 December 2007 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 28 April 2006
US Distributor
UK Distributor
Synopsis
Welcome to Butterface Fields - small town, USA. The kind of place where everybody knows your name and what you ate for breakfast. Where life is simple, relaxed and easy-going.
Except today.
Meet Andy Sargentee, (Jeff Bridges). A man at the end of his rope after a humiliating visit to the mansion of his son's new stepfather. He is a guy we all know. He spends most of his time in the neighborhood bar with a group of regulars. He says the one thing to his boss that is guaranteed to get him fired, but it is the one thing that everyone else in the office wishes they had said. And his biggest fear, since his divorce, is that he will lose the love of his son, Billy (Alex Linz). He wants to be able to provide for Billy, buy him cool presents and have him to stay on weekends, but he can't even keep a job as a night security guard.
He sits in Floyd's Bar, the only watering hole in town, surrounded by his friends and neighbors desperately trying to conjure up that One Great Idea that's going to solve all his problems and make him a richer man. The trouble is that Andy's great ideas usually mean dragging these friends and neighbors into some hair brained scheme like selling vitamins and they end up losing their life savings.
Today they're particularly nervous. Whatever plan he cooking up is going to be a humdinger so they are desperately trying to distract him with free drinks and conversation but Andy is in the zone. He flashes through the paper looking for inspiration, head spinning round the bar, eyeballing the window of the video store across the street, back to the paper, the posters, the paper. Geez, there's sex everywhere!!
That's it!
Of course. It's so obvious. They're going to make a porno! It's cheap. Everyone can get involved and share the rewards. But most importantly, for the first time in his sorry life, Andy will have actually achieved something and seen it through from beginning to end. He's not interested in the sex. He's not interested in seeing women naked. He just wants to be his own boss, make a little money and give himself and his buddies something to feel good about.
Andy recruits his relatively normal best friend Barney (Tim Blake Nelson), who is hopelessly in love with Helen (Glenne Headly) who doesn't realize Mr Right is right in front of her. He also needs someone who knows something about film so he recruits the local video store film-geek Emmett (Patrick Fugit) to be the cinematographer. Next he needs a writer/director and gets his friend Some Idiot (a name even his mother calls him) (Joe Pantoliano), who has taken enough film classes at the junior college to think he has what it takes. And finally Otis (William Fichtner), who can't imagine anything better than being on a porno set and wants to executive produce and Moose (Ted Danson), who is obviously gay but spends most of his time boasting about his various straight conquests.
The crew pool their money together and everything they don't know about filmmaking into writing, producing, directing and, yes, even starring in their very own amateur porno. The stakes are high and Andy desperately needs to post a victory on the board - any kind of victory - to make himself feel worthy of his son's love.
Can these naïve small-town souls get it together and produce a movie? And will Andy solve his problems or will his friends once again lend him their hearts and wallets to finance a pipe dream?
