Nobodys Baby (2001 film)

Plot

In this comedy, Billy Raedeen (Skeet Ulrich) escapes the law after being convicted with his partner in crime Buford Bill (Gary Oldman). On his way to Utah, Billy rescues a baby from an auto wreck and decides to keep it though he knows next to nothing about caring for an infant. He gets help from diner waitress Shauna Louise (Radha Mitchell) and her neighbor Estelle (Mary Steenburgen). When Buford tracks Billy down, he sees the baby as a monetary potential. However, Billy and Shauna Louise have grown attached to the child and they aren't willing to give her up.

Cast

Skeet Ulrich as Billy Raedeen

Gary Oldman as Buford Bill

Radha Mitchell as Shauna Louise

Mary Steenburgen as Estelle

Gordon Tootoosis as Dog Havasu

Anna Gunn as Stormy

Peter Greene as Vern

Matthew Modine as Sonny

Ed O'Neill as guy in car dealership

Release

Following its premiere at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, the film was not released theatrically. It received a USA home video release on August 20, 2002.

Reception

Geoffrey Gilmore, director of the Sundance Film Festival, called the film "a pure delight from start to finish":

If you were impressed watching Oldman play a congressman, wait until you see him do comedy and line dance! With terrific turns by Mary Steenburgen and Radha Mitchell, Utah scenery, hilarious dialogue, and the best joke in a film this side of Something about Mary, Nobody's Baby is a wonderfully entertaining odyssey that should bring Seltzer nothing but accolades.

Variety, reviewing the film after its January 21, 2001 premiere at Sundance, described it as "aim[ing] somewhere between Dumb and Dumber and Three Men and a Baby. The film's "witless script wrings few laughs from its retread conceits...What's most toxic, however, is having to watch these actors sweat for their paychecks. Oldman vanishes into mutton chops and Walter Brennan mannerisms, gamely making an idiot of himself, to absolutely no humorous result....Steenburgen, Greene and O'Neill are allowed to be little more than unpleasant; Matthew Modine surfaces in a nothing role. Twinkling amidst the cow pies, Ulrich clearly relishes playing dum-dum, and his disarming sweetness lends the film whatever fleeting conviction it can claim."