HELD UP

by Peter Keough

What can you expect from a dumb-ass movie other than a few guilty laughs and an engaging performance? For me, the giant exploding hot dog redeems the countless other inanities in first-time director Steve Rash's Held Up. That and Jamie Foxx, who's suitably inept and sexy as Michael Dawson, a shmuck whose idea of a good time is to drive fiancée Rae (a shrill Nia Long) along the rim of the Grand Canyon in a classic car he just dropped a fortune on. But Murphy's Law (Eddie, that is) kicks in when the couple take a rest stop at a Arizona backwater and in short order Michael loses his fiancée, his car, his money, and his name (the local yokels haven't seen many black people, so they mistake him for Puff Daddy and Michael Tyson). By the time a clueless Mexican robber takes him and some colorful natives hostage in a convenience store, Held Up has already overstayed its welcome, its comatose narrative stirring to life with an occasional inspired gag. As when Michael reads the "Sip and Zip" sign from the inside of the store window as "Pis and Piz": in a celluloid desert like this, that's an oasis of comedy. At Leominster and the Worcester North Showcase.