Younger audiences may not remember, and probably wouldn’t believe you if you told them, but there was once a time when many people thought Chris Klein was on his way to becoming a big star.
He was handsome, charming and fit the square-jawed All-American template to a tee, and he found success early after playing a major role in breakout comedy smash hit American Pie, which hit theaters when he was just 20 years old, only thee months after he played a substantial supporting part in Alexander Payne’s acclaimed Election.
Signing on to headline a $70 million actioner from the director of Predator and Die Hard was a sound next move on paper, but John McTiernan’s Rollerball flopped spectacularly at the box office and was torn apart by critics, which was a massive blow to Klein’s long term leading man prospects. However, one of his star vehicles from the mid-2000s is back with a vengeance on streaming, after The Long Weekend shot up the HBO Max most-watched list by 28 places, as per FlixPatrol.
Klein and Brendan Fehr star as brothers Cooper and Ed Waxman, with the latter being given 48 hours to save his job when his boss gives him an ultimatum. Ed is also single, something that ladies man Cooper is seeking to remedy, and you can imagine the sort of hijinks that ensue from then on out. Reviews weren’t kind, and a Rotten Tomatoes user rating of 38% from over 10,000 votes is hardly sterling stuff, but HBO Max subscribers can’t seem to get enough.
