Flypaper is a 2011 comedy, drama, mystery movie, which is quite possibly one of the lowest grossing movies of all time. Despite a low gross and numerous bad critic scores, the movie boasts a whose who cast of Hollywood. Is the movie as bad as the critics say?

The movie starts off with Tripp (Patrick Dempsey) entering a bank and requesting a sum of money. He is waited on by bank teller, Kaitlin (Ashley Judd, Bug). During their transaction, two sets of bank robbers enter and hold everyone hostage. One group consists of Peanut Butter (Tim Black Nelson) and Jelly (Pruitt Taylor Vince), who are fairly incompetent. On the other hand, Weinstein (John Ventimiglia), Darrien (Mekhi Phifer) and Gates (Matt Ryan, Constantine) also plan on robbing the bank. Of course, the latter group is much more professional. At the very beginning of the heist, a hostage is killed, which appears to be an accident.

During the course of the robbery, the two groups decide to work together and take numerous hostages, including Gordon Blythe (Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent), Rex Newbauer (Rob Huebel, Transparent), Swiss Miss (Natalia Safran) and Madge Wiggins (Octavia Spencer, Red Band Society). Among the hostages, you also have Mr. Clean (Adrian Matrinez) and Mitchell Wolf (Curtis Armstrong). Of course, Tripp is someone of a perfectionist, who always spots things out of the ordinary. He begins to unravel the mystery surrounding the planning of the operation.

While Gates and crew attempt to break into the vault, Peanut Butter and Jelly struggle to break into an ATM, despite having plenty of explosives. Meanwhile, Tripp discovers that the two groups of robbers were summoned to the bank, by the same individual. As it turns out, everyone inside is linked to this individual, who turns out to be one of the best bank robbers in the world named Marcellus Drum.

At this point, the movie turns into quite the mystery. Who exactly is Marcellus Drum and what is his or her motivation for the current arrangement?

Review


All in all, it is difficult to see why this movie didn’t make more money and garner more attention, especially with the list of names in the cast. Despite the low reviews, the movie is certainly not terrible. In fact, a lot of the jokes were witty enough to bring a few laughs. The cast definitely worked well together and it appeared they were all enjoying themselves.

Overall, the story is clever enough to hold your attention and keep your questioning throughout. While the movie isn’t perfect, it is better than most say. The movie deserves a 7 out of 10.