Your classic "escaped convicts assume false identities" comedy, combined with the "stranger in town" plot, and the "small town with a big personality" story. Steve Zahn plays Wayne, a less refined version of his hapless convict character in
Out Of Sight the previous year, but it feels like this is a warm-up for that role? He glues on a weird speech impediment, like he has a mouthful of toffee, and throws himself into saving this movie from mediocrity. It needs the help: his fellow escapee Harry is played by staid Englishman Jeremy Northam, mainstay of Miramax costume dramas. I can only assume he's in this because he was contractually tied to Miramax, or he owed them a movie, or something? His "American" accent is alternately distracting and hilarious. As soon as Wayne and Harry decide to hide out in Happy Texas, we diverge into three plots: Wayne has to teach a flock of little girls to be pageant queens, with Ileana Douglas (another Miramax vet) as their mother hen; Northam wades through a romantic storyline with "Joe" (Ally Walker), the beautiful but sadly heartbroken woman, who will never leave her little patch of paradise; Northam also befriends the local sheriff, Chappy. William H. Macy plays Chappy as a tender soul but also with fierce intensity - you barely dare to make eye contact with him for fear of breaking his heart. Macy is a talented comedic actor, but he plays his arc way too earnestly to be funny. We are left to assume Macy was not told by his director what kind of comedy this movie is supposed to be. Zahn is playing it as Hope/Crosby slapstick, Northam is in a romance with no comedy, and Macy is in a drama? Produced by Miramax at the height of the Independent Cinema boom,
Happy Texas only resembles a arty independent film in that it doesn't laugh
at the gay men. Small-town Texas contains zero homophobes. Zahn and Northam do exactly nothing to play their characters are gay - no lisping, no flouncing. This was progressive in 1999.
I did appreciate that they shot the entire movie on location, it looks terrific, if not like Texas.
NOTE: We watched this on a lark after enjoying Steve Zahn's 1996 masterpiece That Thing You Do!
