Another issue which may cause viewers to disconnect with the characters in general is how one-dimensional they all are. Caesar is the comically self-seeking screw-up, while Otto is the stupid yet just as selfish sponge-like brother. All the guest-stars are one-note caricatures. While these sketch-like characters might work in ‘Married with Children’ or ‘MadTV’, they don’t have enough depth for viewers to care about them in the course of a film. While this was no doubt the point the director was making about reality TV, it just doesn’t work in this film. The Truman Show dealt with many of these same comments, but the writers had to be very careful to make Truman a 3-Dimensional character so that movie audiences could believe in him and care what happened to him.
This of course leads us to the ending. If your characters are one dimensional, then you have to have an amazing ending to make up for that. Basically, to compensate for dimensional shortcomings in characters, you must now create an “event” picture in which the reason for the audience to watch to the end is because somehow what is accomplished at the end is so amazing that the cost of them wading through the shallow characters is paid for by the surprise of the ending. This is very difficult to do and I can’t actually think of a movie peopled by truly shallow characters that achieved a satisfying enough ending to do this successfully. Even the more recent version of Ocean’s Eleven (which is truly an “event” picture as it’s more about the heist than the people that pull off the heist) shows at least some depth to its characters and has a villain with enough bad qualities to pull out the better qualities of at least some of the protagonists through comparison.
Now that we’ve talked about the type of ending this film would need to have, let’s talk about the ending it actually had. This will, of course, include spoilers.
For the finale, the producers of the show have gotten the television studio to build a huge arena in which they will trick Caesar and Otto into showing up at in order that they might find out that they’ve been on television for an entire season. They anticipate packing out the auditorium, which makes limited sense because, earlier in the film, the producers explain to television execs that they will shoot an entire season before they broadcast any episodes. This means that no one knows who Caesar and Otto are, nor does it explain why they would pack out a stadium to see them. (Of course, the director could be making the statement that Americans are so willing to be part of something that they will willingly pack a stadium for the merest chance of being on TV, regardless of what the event is that they’re showing up for. If this was the case, however, a line of dialog from one of the producers stating this fact would have been helpful.)
The day before they’re supposed to find out that they’re on TV, Caesar somehow finds the studio where the two producers are switching the show and figures out that he’s on TV ahead of time. (Glossing over the likelihood of a man under surveillance stumbling on his surveyors without them realizing what he’s up to ahead of time, we continue.) Caesar is at first angry, but quickly calms down when they explain that he’ll be famous and wealthy if the finale can be shot properly. Unfortunately, now that he knows he’s on TV, Caesar behaves stiltedly from the way he has in the rest of the film, trying to comport himself with dignity for the huddled masses he can now envision. Unfortunately for the show’s producers, Caesar decides that a little more light on his face will make him look more sophisticated and decides to turn on all the lights in the apartment to give himself the “proper” lighting. Due to some sort of Looney Tunes logic, this power surge from the lights blows the circuits to the adjacent, newly-constructed stadium and, with it, all the cameras in the stadium. Somehow, however, it doesn’t blow the circuits or the cameras in the apartment. Because of the anticipated lack of coverage once Caesar and Otto enter the stadium, the producers call a female guest star who’s on the finale to grab a portable video camera to video tape Caesar and Otto as they go into the stadium. However, when Caesar has difficulty opening the door to the stadium, the guest start decides to egg him on by insulting him. Much like Daffy Duck, Caesar becomes angry and decides to beat her and the camera down. Thus the chance of completing the finale is shot and some previously unknown father-son team get the distinction of living in oblivion during a hidden camera show. Meanwhile Caesar and Otto go back to their normal lives and the producers of the show move in with them because they can’t get another break in Hollywood.
With this film really needing an amazingly unpredictable ending, the fact that it was so blatantly predictable was a death blow. (Unless you are the sort of viewer that really loves a “Married with Children” ending.) One alternative way to make the film’s ending more satisfying would be to have the television love the new ending, showing that violence is a great seller for reality television. This could also open up a second season starting with Caesar going to court for assault and battery charges on the camera girl. While this would make the film feel a bit more fulfilling, it wouldn’t solve the fact that neither Caesar nor Otto (nor anyone else in the film, for that matter) have learned one blessed thing during the events of this film, which negates any form of character arc.
