Shortcut To Happiness (2004)

It seems the lifespan of a Hollywood actor's career is a very consistent one. Once an actor's career peaks it's usually a downhill slope of sub-par films, direct to DVD releases, cable TV movies and the last resort of resuming a career in television. I just find it interesting how it all usually seems to end up the same way, something that is quite inherent in Shortcut To Happiness a low budget premium movie channel release with a slew of actors who at one time were highly sought after and popular.

Shortcut To Happiness is your typical story of the Devil suckering some poor guy who's completely down in the dumps to give up his soul for what he believes will be a few years of utter bliss. Alec Baldwin is Jabez Stone, an aspiring writer whose life takes a turn for the worse when he's fired from his job, discovers he has absolutely no money, his laptop (with his novel stored on it) is stolen from him on the street, and to top it all off he accidentally kills an old woman by tossing out a typewriter from his apartment window. But just when Stone thinks his life is officially over a beautiful woman (Jennifer Love Hewitt) arrives at his door offering to change his life and give him whatever he wants. The catch is this lovely creature is in fact the Devil and after 10 years of the "success" that Stone requests she will then collect his internal soul. To someone whose about to be arrested for murder, and has nothing else to his name it appears to be an easy decision for Stone but he quickly realizes (as they all do) that success comes with a price, and while it all may provide the physical comforts of life it definitely is not a "shortcut to happiness".

I was primarily interested in checking out this film because of Jennifer Love Hewitt, an actress whom I feel has a lot more talent than is shown in the roles she appears to be given or chooses. It amazes me that she can't get roles in better films when you look at the success of actresses like Megan Fox whose career is solely based on sex appeal, Hewitt either isn't interested in capitalizing on that or prefers the steady job of a television series. Hewitt does a descent job in her role as the Devil, but its utterly too brief, amounting to about 10-15 minutes of the entire film. Besides Hewitt there's nothing much to rave about Shortcut To Happiness, the story is formulaic, and the acting is average, with exception of Anthony Hopkins who actually gives a pretty good performance, it's just sad to see him in such a below average made for cable film. Overall, Shortcut To Happiness is basically a more dramatic version of Bedazzled with a lot of actors who used to have successful movie careers. The only people I can see this film appealing to is hardcore fans of Alec Baldwin, and unfortunately his performance is possibly the worst in the film.

5/10