Kip's Movie & Music Reviews

"Duck Soup" is, without a doubt, one of the most emotionally exhausting films I have seen in many years ("Ordinary People", maybe, or the last six or seven Steven Seagal movies). Matt Damon stars as Groucho Marx in this lurid tale of desire thwarted.

Groucho marries a lovely seamstress named Lily (Jennifer Lopez) and periodically he tells her of his favorite sexual fantasy...being a cuckold and sharing her with other men. She listens but does not offer even a hint of what she thinks about it. Several years go by and Lily finds herself arranging a threesome with Groucho's brothers Harpo (Matt Dillon) and Zeppo (Ryan Gosling)...this all takes place on one of her regular weekend visits. She meets them in a cheap hotel room and she has all her camera gear set up. In the beginning the guys had some doubts about being filmed, but Lily was the kind of gal who could convince a man that anything she desires is worth the cost paid for it.

The evening ends and Lily has her movie. She goes home and calls for Groucho. Marx saunters into the room and sits next to her. Videotape in hand, she asks him if he had ever been really serious about sharing her with other men.

Groucho is taken aback. All this time he had been hinting and she hadn't so much as validate that she'd even heard. Now she brings it up and he can tell she's serious. He thinks long and hard about it and decides that fantasies should probably remain just that.

"Too late", she says.

And it is at this point that "Duck Soup" establishes itself as a postmodern masterwork. How does Groucho react as he watches videotape of his wife with two big, beefy black men. Does he wimp out and let it bring him down? Does he rejoice now that he is a genuine certified cuckold? Could this be a new chapter in their marriage, primarily to their sex life? Does Harpo play the harp or is it the piano in this one? Both? How does Gosling pull off the Zeppo character? Does he infuse it with the charm and intimacy of the real deal? Isn't it neat to think of Jennifer Lopez as a slut for a change?

Dillon's a little weak, but overall "Duck Soup" is a solid 4 out of 5.