Birdbrained bird-watchers in 'Big Year'

We've seen whimsically charming comedies about competitive gardening ("Greenfingers"), competitive hairstyling ("The Big Tease") and heavyset British women becoming competitive Sumo wrestlers ("Secret Society"). There may be a great movie inherent in competitive bird-watching (sorry: "birding" -- it's like the whole "Trekkies" vs. "Trekkers" thing). But "The Big Year" is not it.

Based on the nonfiction book "The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession" by Mark Obmascik -- which chronicles the annual, calendar-year competition to sight the most different bird species and be crowned champion by the American Birding Association -- the movie follows fictionalized versions of the real-life champ and two challengers: a corporate chief executive and a chubby nuclear-plant software engineer.

Respectively renamed Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson), Stu Preissler (Steve Martin) and Brad Harris (Jack Black), they crisscross the country and neglect family and business in their single-minded quest. Hotline phone calls tip them off to reported sightings or to weather conditions that stir up "fallouts" of thousands of birds, and they're off on the next red-eye or charter boat. They and others make a pilgrimage to a bare barracks in the near-Arctic bird sanctuary Attu Island.

New Jersey contractor Bostick somehow has the luxury to be away for weeks or months from his biological-clock-watching wife (Rosamund Pike). Preissler, who's trying to retire from his corporation, has both the money and a sufficiently understanding wife (JoBeth Williams) to be away from home for extended periods. Harris, who lives with his parents (Brian Dennehy, Dianne Wiest), travels on weekends and maxes out credit cards.

The difference between enchanting eccentricity and inexplicable obsession is the difference between comedy and whatever this unpleasant experience is. The plodding story, which devotes one scene to sub-Beavis & Butt-head jokes about a bird called a snow cock, includes the requisite Jack Black pratfall and, embarrassingly, Steve Martin briefly breaking into his 1970s "Wild and Crazy Guy" dance.

Need we say it? This movie's for the birds.

PLOT Three men compete to be the country's best birder. RATING PG (language, some sensuality)

CAST Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, Jack Black

LENGTH 1:40

PLAYING AT Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE Birdbrained attempt at comedy

Back story: The 'Year' of living honorably

Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black signed on to make this comedy about competitive bird-watching.

And they were amazed at what they discovered while making "The Big Year": Bird-watchers, or "birders," hopping on planes, flitting from Attu, Ala., to Key West, Fla., trying to spot the rarest birds in North America during a calendar year.

And the most amazing discovery of all? Honor.

"This huge competition, birders all over the country, is done on the honor system," Martin says. "I thought for sure you'd have to at least have a photograph. Then I thought, 'Photographs can be faked or bought anywhere.' It has to be done on the honor system."

As author Mark Obmascik wrote in "The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession," the book on which the film is based, "In a Big Year, there are few rules and no referees." Black pipes up: "It just seems like they're wide open and vulnerable to fraud."

Then Wilson weighs in: "You know, they could verify it with travel, if it ever came to that. 'This rare bird was only spotted here at this time, so do you have the paperwork to show that you were there?' "

"Since I was playing the record holder for having a Big Year, so going into it I had to get myself up to some of expert level," Wilson says. "We had experts helping us. But I just, uh, followed the script." "What he's saying is NO. He didn't become an expert birder," Martin says, contradicting Wilson. "You really can't pick and choose your passions. I had never quite gotten the passion for this that my wife, for example, has. I'm not going to put on a parka and a pair of binoculars and a funny hat.

-- The Orlando Sentinel