This is the fourth in a series of monthly reviews suggested by Nick Jobe at Your Face.
When Nick Jobe gave me my list of 12 films for this year, I have to admit that there was something about the name of 10 Items or Less that tweaked me. It wasn’t that there was a short-lived television show of the same name. No, it’s the fact that there’s a damn grammar error in the title. “Less” refers to quantities that can’t be counted; the correct word for countable items is “fewer.” So it’s less population, fewer people; less furniture, fewer chairs; less food, fewer hamburgers. “Less” is for mass nouns, “fewer” for countable nouns. Dammit, it’s not that hard.
Anyway, 10 Items or Less is a breezy, short little comedy that follows a tried and true formula of putting two very different people together and seeing what happens. An unnamed but well-known actor (Morgan Freeman) has gone for years without a movie. He’s been offered a role in an indie film and is considering taking it, but wants to do some research first. The director sends him off in a van with Packy (Jonah Hill), who is star-struck in the actor’s presence. Packy is virtually clueless in all things, and eventually drops the actor off at a grocery store in a much rougher part of Los Angeles.
