STRANGE and quirky doesn’t begin to do justice to Scott
Prendergast’s “Kab luey,” in which he also stars as Salman, a man-boy trapped for hours every day in a giant blue mascot uniform.
Slacker Salman has been summoned to Middle America by his sister-in-law Leslie, excellently played by Lisa Kudrow in what is arguably her best big-screen performance. Leslie’s husband (Salman’s brother) has just had his 18-month National Guard enlistment in Iraq extended. And their two young sons, acting out in their dad’s absence, are pushing Leslie to the edge of a nervous breakdown.
Salman is even less equipped to cope with them than Leslie is. So to help with child-care bills, she gets Salman a job at her company, a failing Internet service provider with a huge, mostly empty building.
Our hero is supposed to stand on the road in the mascot suit handing out leaflets to potential renters. As his hilariously brusque boss (Conchata Ferrell) points out, it’s just a token effort to assuage the company’s investors.
The costume is huge, hot and difficult to manage; there is a very funny sequence in which Salman attempts to open a beer can, and then has to relieve himself.
But his new role as Kabluey is a hit with his nephews, and he’s hired to entertain at a children’s party where the adults feel free to gossip in front of him.
Salman comes to learn that Leslie, partly out of economic necessity, is cheating on his brother with her slimy boss. So he teams up with a woman in a cheese costume to straighten things out.
“Kabluey,” which has no discernible political agenda, is wildly uneven and often seems like a short stretched to feature length. But it’s also kind of oddly endearing.
KABLUEY
“Stop-Loss” as farce.
Running time: 86 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sexual references, profanity). At Cinema Village, East 12th Street and University Place.