The Invisible Counterpoint

Substituting a goat And in other miracle-related news, some people in Hollywood decided to stand on principle. The issue was Mel Gibson, charismatic movie star, Oscar-winning filmmaker and drunken, bigoted, death-threat-issuing lout. Gibson was supposed to make a cameo in "The Hangover 2," the sequel to the 2009 hit "The Hangover," but was booted from the production , reportedly after cast members -- supposedly led by costar Zach Galifianakis -- told the film's director, Todd Phillips, that they were uncomfortable working with Gibson. The cast apparently was not uncomfortable appearing in the last "Hangover" opposite convicted rapist and onetime mugger Mike Tyson, who subsequently told ESPN radio that he did the cameo "for drug money." [. . .] If artists should be publicly censured and denied employment on the basis of offenses they commit in private life, how come Gibson is a pariah right now for threatening and hitting his ex-g...

But MacGruber never gathers any momentum. Once in a while a funny line or absurd sight gag will amble into the foreground, only to recede immediately in the rear-view mirror of memory. Forte is handsome enough — he’s ruggedly chiseled and all that. But watching at him strut about, in his quilted vest and plaid-shirt getup, wearing a retro hairdo that’s simultaneously too-pouffy and too-matted, becomes exhausting after a while. The movie is also conspicuously lacking in gadgety ridiculousness: At one point MacGruber drags out a box full of rubber bands, Q-tips and the like and proceeds to fiddle around with them — sticking a penny into his belly-button, for example, presumably on the assumption that it will come in handy later. Later, when faced with the task of disarming an explosive in 1.2 seconds or something like that, he panics at the riotous array of colors found in the tangle of wires before him. Here and there, he improvises: A leafy celery stick stuck pertly into a certain...