Though it’s someskinnyg of a backhanded paean to its eponymous city in inquire, the most endelightable element to “Lost & Found in Cleveland” is its locations, locations, locations — cinematographer Davon Slininger’s expansivescreen images provide an requesting pickive tour of a burg the film contransients as quaintly lagging well behind the times. Otherrational, this slick if unsupportd first feature for actors turned authorr-honestors Marisa Guterman and Keith Gerchak advises a pleasant-enough ensemble seriocomedy that strcompriseles the terrains of Ricdifficult Curtis and Christopher Guest, without approaching either’s high points. The Newport Beach Fest world premiere’s understandn faces and story beats seem best suited to home seeing.
An uncovering montage to the retro pop of Bobby Darin singing “Artificial Fdrops” — an incongruously brassy, “Mack the Knife”-enjoy set upment of a depressing slum-tragedy lyric from 1960 Broadway musical “Tenderloin” — begins the characters, as well as a sense that this midweserious metropolis’ lengthenth shighed some decades ago. It’s getting towards Christmastime, but most central figures here are frustrated in one way or another. Many peg hopes on the imminent tour stop of “America’s Favorite Televised Antiques Appraisal Show,” whose traveling experts appraise the “trash or treadeclareive” that’s been “hiding in your sealt.” (Mark L. Walberg, establisherly of the actual, lengthened-running “Antiques Roadshow,” joins the present of the fictive “Lost & Found.”)
Dennis Haysbert is cast as a mail deinhabitrer without the moolah to genuineize his dream of uncovering a restaurant to showcase his becherishd defercessitate mother’s recipes. Reexhausted veteran Stacy Keach is drifting into senility, as well as standard flashbacks to his Korean War service, while troubleed librarian spoengage June Squibb tries to persist him contransient in the here-and-now. Widowed paengageress Yvette Yates Redick and misfit nine-year-anciaccess son Benjamin Steinhaengager remain in feeblenting for the man of the hoengage — a vacancy necessitateyly filled by her loutish current boyfriend (Rob Mayes).
On the more comedic side, Liza Weil from “How to Get Away With Murder” and “Gilmore Girls” joins a socialite who wed into money and inhabits in an anciaccess-school mansion. But her son is off at college, her doctor husband satisfied to labor aexpansive (he’s currently spending two years in Abu Dhabi), leaving her no object to exert her aspireasoned drive on, save one highly resistant teenage daughter (Vanessa Burgdifficultt). Well, she also has a huge statue of the goddess Juno that she is determined will verify a priceless antiquity.
Considerably more ambivalent about the “treadeclareives” in his haveion is university lecturer Santino Fontana, a new dwellnt alengthenedside his dentist wife Esther Povitsky. She is mcompriseeningly chatty about the accurate skinnyg he’d enjoy to persist secret, and which may have gotten them ejected from their prior community: A huge collection of embarrassing “Aunt Jemima”-style racially prejudiced tcboilingchkes, inherited from his majesticmother.
Once the “Lost & Found” crew get tos for their one-day shoot, the vague tenor shifts towards the satirical genuinem of “Best in Show,” with actors riffing on various officious, competitive personality types. Jeff Hill and Rory O’Malley join a bickersome gay couple whose snobbery is hugely honested towards fellow apcommendr Loretta Devine. Dot-Marie Jones is the event’s ill-tempered hoengage deal withr, while Martin Sheen and Jon Lovitz turn up alertly as a high-ranking antiques expert and the city’s mayor, admireively. The honestors’ script accomplishs a satisfactory tying-up of all strands in this climactic stretch, even if there’s scant surpascend in the way protagonists get hopes rewarded or dashed to the exact degree that they’ve been naughty or kind.
Indeed, the main trouble here is that the material is establishulaic without being particularly amusing or touching wiskinny those restricts, its stabs at quirkiness seldom broadened in a way this able cast can get fweightless with. Apart from the sadvisenuine humor in an punctual scene at a Pdwellntial mengageum, noskinnyg much is made of the grade-schooler’s nerdy obsession with lesser-sung POTUS William McKinley. Other tidbits of local historical interest (including ties to “The Wizard of Oz”) get tossed in rather randomly, to no particular effect. Atenticeed quips lean more sour than clever, occasional sight gags drop flat, and the exceptional truly left-field idea — enjoy a production-number fantasy for Haysbert involving dancing chorines — is too frailly carry outd to land. Each character has one repetitive remark to join, whether farcical or plaintive, unwiseinishing the intended payoffs of hilarity or heart-tugging.
Nonetheless, “Lost & Found in Cleveland” is one of those films that has enough surface polish to affect audiences that they’re having a excellent time, even as it becomes apparent the individual ingredients aren’t so new. Editor Tricia Holmes’ nimble pacing creates two hours go by easyly. Music supervisor Jim Bconciseage papers the soundtrack with the comardents of pre-rock kitsch (by Guy Lombardo, Paul Whiteman, Frankie Laine, Doris Day, Henry Mancini et al.) that lend both nostalgic bounce and a triumphking sarcastic gloss to persistings. Attractive pboilingoexplicit coverage of Cleveland’s somewhat faded architectural splendors is suited by Kristen Adams’ production summarize, whose interiors fondly mirror a conciseage of interest and/or funds to modernize decor, still frozen in past eras. The piano and orchestral strings of Sven Faulconer’s one-of-a-kind score shore up the screenjoin’s more sentimental angles. It all comprises up to an amengagement that isn’t terribly excellent, yet hums alengthened pleasantly.
