shortcut to happiness

'Shortcut To Happiness' is an adaptation of the 1941 classic 'The Devil and Daniel Webster. Starred by the gifted and impeccably good looking for a 50 year old, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Hopkins, who by the way still give me the creeps after watching Hannibal, and the beautiful, sultry Jennifer Love Hewitt. This movie tells a tale about the hapless, luckless writer, played by Baldwin, who tries hard to make a breakthrough in the literary world. A failure who only has a dollar fifty in his checking account and whose manuscripts got stolen, hurls a typewriter out the window in a fit of frustration. Baldwin,as desperate as a clingy girlfriend is, reluctantly offers to sell his soul to trade places with his friend who is just about to launch his career. The Beezlebub in this movie is played none other than the bewitching Jennifer Love Hewitt, agrees to make Baldwin a literary success in exchange for a 10-year-lease on his soul.

Baldwin finally gets to be the bestselling author as he has always dreamed of, but is deprived of friends and joy and contentment. After realising that he has made a huge mistake shaking hands with the Devil, he turns to regal publishing magnate Anthony Hopkins, a masterful orator who has battled the Devil and emerged victorious on multiple occasions. As it is clear that Baldwin has breached the contract, a trial is held so that Hewitt still gets her fair share of the bargain. The contract is written in a way that there are no loopholes and Baldwin's signature is clearly forged at the end of the agreement, so it is obvious that Hopkins is going to have to think out of the box to save Baldwin from the evil grasp of Hewitt.

In desperation and out of patriotism, Hopkins states that Baldwin is an American citizen and no American citizen will be forced into the service of a foreign prince. He bellows of freedom and independence and even calls upon an American jury and an American judge. Hopkins persuades by orating on all of the simple and good things of the American life, and how mankind has done wrong, but argues that something new and good had grown from it. He then goes on to saying that 'mankind got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey, something no demon that was ever foaled could ever understand.'

The jury, in awe of Hopkin's eloquence of speech, finds that Baldwin is not binded to the contract and is a free man. This movie has gotten plenty of bad reviews due to the bad production, but it still provides a good lesson somehow, that there is never a shortcut to pleasantry, and even if you're bound to the Devil, there's always a way out. Eloquence and persuasion will do it.