1977 comedy
Rating: 13/20
Plot: At the most inopportune time (when they're putting a pool in), a guy loses his job, putting a family in a major financial bind. After trying to get some help in legal ways, they decide to turn to a life of crime to make ends meet.
Cynical almost to the point of being subversive, this late-70's comedy leaves a bad taste in the mouth more than it makes you laugh. Lines about imagination and ingenuity being what has made the American industry great or Segal's character having a previous job that put people on the moon describe American surface ideals that clash with the underbelly--the ideas that breaking rules is really what makes the country great or that people who do things "the straight way" are a minority group. Despite all the questionable ethics, I think I was supposed to root for Segal and Fonda's Dick and Jane characters here. I mean, the "victims" being robbed were bad people, like leaders of a church who treat religion like it's big business. However, they are so fixated on appearances and money and looking for shortcuts and refusing to compromise, that they really became completely unlikable.
Dated humor involving transvestites, immigration, and a character in brown face during an opera are bad enough, but you've also got very few black faces in this who aren't there just to be bad guys. That didn't sit right either.
The robberies themselves are entertaining, that gun as a symbol of what guns normally represent, and Fonda and Segal both have a few good lines. There's also another Nilsson-esque song over the opening credits, something by a group called The Movies, a band that I've given up trying to find information on because they named themselves The Movies. What am I even supposed to search for? Anyway, Nilsson-esque songs must have been all the rage in 1977.
No comments:
Post a Comment