Caffeine
Mena Suvari, Marsha Thomason
Katherine Heigl, Breckin Meyer, Callum Blue
Directed by John Cosgrove
Peace Arch Entertainment 2007
88 minutes
Caffeine is a weird, quirky British comedy about the goings on at the Black Cat Café somewhere in London, England. The movie takes a lot of getting used to as it introduces quite a bevy of characters early on in the movie and figuring out who is who and what they are up to is a little complicated throughout. Since all the patrons and employees are misfits with romantic and sex life problems this could have made for good adult fun.
Everybody at the Black Cat Café is having a bad day. Rachel, the manager, fires her chef and boyfriend after he has had a threesome (which only counts as one indiscretion even if there were two girls involved). A possessive boyfriend finds out his girlfriend used to be a porn star. A crazy old lady bothers the customers. A shy girl meets her gun loving blind date. Two stoners discuss the finer points of being a guy and one worries he has prostate cancer before he discovers his ex is on a blind date at the cafe. Two businessmen, one who received a dead rat in a Harrod’s bag, meet. A whole bunch of other stuff happens.
Caffeine has too many stories and too many characters for its own good: each on its own is interesting; all these together is confusing. This is a shame because there are some very good moments here and some very funny lines. The bloke on the blind date is really a bit much though.
If you plunked a camera in the middle of a busy coffee house full of weirdos you would get Caffeine. The problem is someone should have edited this movie so it makes sense and does not lose its viewer. As it is, there are about 25 or so major or minor characters to figure out in 88 minutes; you do the math.