Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A conniving Broadway producer and his meek accountant plan to profit from charming wealthy old biddies to invest in an overbudget production, and then put on a sure-fire disaster, so nobody will ask for their money back — and what's more disastrous than a tasteless musical celebrating Adolf Hitler.
The 2005 Producers is a filmed stage musical adaptation of Mel Brooks's Broadway revival, which itself was based on his 1967 film. The result is a triple-layer adaptation that struggles with genuine cinematic identity — it's essentially a filmed stage show, with flat, theatrical staging and little inventive use of the camera or screen space, earning a low Cinematography score. The plot is faithfully reproduced from the classic source but offers nothing new structurally, and Novelty suffers as a result — this is a by-the-numbers transfer of an already familiar story. Acting is a mixed bag: Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick bring energy and comic timing honed from their stage runs, but the performances often feel pitched too broadly for film. The ending mirrors the stage show's upbeat resolution adequately. The comedy still has Mel Brooks's anarchic spirit embedded in its DNA, which keeps the plot engaging, but the film rarely justifies its own existence as a separate cinematic work.