THE TEN (UNHOLY & UNRATED)

Details

• Release Year: 2007
• Genre: Comedy
• Plot: It's inevitable that a director with a sketch-comedy background, like The State's David Wain, would make a movie comprised of sketches. Written with his Wet Hot American Summer collaborator Ken Marino, The Ten brings the Big Man's commandments to life via 10 mini-movies or 'stories,' as host Paul Rudd calls them. (Rudd is joined by Famke Janssen, as his wife, and Jessica Alba, as his girlfriend.) The narratives rarely play out in a predictable manner, but laughs are in surprisingly short supply (possibly because each runs a few beats longer than necessary). Still, it's fun to see so many actors cast against type. In 'Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in Vain,' Gretchen Mol's 35-year-old virgin falls for Justin Theroux's Mexican carpenter, while in 'Thou Shalt Not Steal,' Winona Ryder's newlywed falls for a ventriloquist's dummy--and runs off with the little wooden man. Unlike Krysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue, the acclaimed dramatic series inspired by the same source material, Wain and Marino have no trenchant observations to offer about modern morality. Their aim is to amuse. If that means references to prison rape ('Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife' with Marino and The Daily Show's Rob Corddry) and loose bowels (Aaron Augenblick's 'Lying Rhino,' the only animated vignette), so be it. As a reinvention of retro sketch fests, like Kentucky Fried Movie, The Ten falls short, but it's worth a look for the cast, which includes Liev Schreiber, Adam Brody, and Oliver Platt.
• Cast: Paul Rudd, Adam Brody, Jon Hamm, Winona Ryder, Ken Marino, Todd Holoubek, Mather Zickel, Ali Marsh, Raisy Pereyra, Edmund Genest, Ron Silver, Heidi Neurauter, Michael Ziegfeld, Jason Antoon, Andrea Rosen, Chris Wylde, Siri Baruc, Reed Birney, Erica Oyama, Famke Janssen, Gretchen Mol, A.D. Miles, Jason Sudeikis, Alfredo Gonzalez, Paco Mauri, Victoria Pérez, Fernando Baena, Justin Theroux, Tommy Nelson, Nina Hellman, Beth Dover, Liev Schreiber, Zak Orth, Matt Ballard, Novella Nelson, Scott Sowers, Michael Mulheren, Jessica Alba, Kevin Allison, Kerri Kenney, Cedric Sanders, Arlen Escarpeta, Oliver Platt, David Wain, Thomas Lennon, Zandy Hartig, Joe Lo Truglio, Charlie McDermott, Zach Page, Janeane Garofalo, Rob Corddry, Antonio Zavala, Michael Ian Black, Rashida Jones, Michael Showalter, Joe Passaro, Jerry Grayson, John Tormey, Philip Levy, H. Jon Benjamin, Jonathan Stern, Peter Salett, David Diaan, Bobby Cannavale, Robert Ben Garant, Andrew Dawson, John Patrick Barry, Fred Basco, Village, Jack Fisher, Seth Herzog, Andy Kaufman, Paul Richard Kessler, Morris S. Levy, Tom McHugh, Phil Michas, Peter Moore, David Ressel, Noam Rosen, Sarge, Eric Tepper, Craig Wedren, Sarge Pickman, Adam Bertocci, Jonathan Davis, David Fariborz Davoodian, Monique Dupree, Alexis Iacono, Rich Rothbell, Joey Sontz
• Director: David Wain
• Runtime: 1:36
• Company: VVS Films
• Media Format: Movie