The Wrong Guys (1988)

 

THE WRONG GUYS (1988)
By Ralph Santini - *

                Though the entire premise for the 1988 comedy “The Wrong Guys” has been derided by critics when the film came out, half of it has a good amount of potential – regardless of the film itself being a dispiriting comedy. The film’s villain is an escaped convict who wants to hide out in Mount. Whitehead where his uncle used to live, and he eventually has 7 grown-up campers mistaken for being part of the FBI.

                This likeable idea is filled with dark comic possibilities, but this film concludes it in the tradition an awful sitcom. Interesting scenes are followed by slapstick, fun-time moments becoming farce, and the movie doesn't have one bit of good-natured, witty humor. Instead, it clangs every single moment that it follows. “The Wrong Guys” rarely even seems to find out, for example, that the real subject of the film is not dark comedy but silly slapstick – the slapstick of 7 grown-ups trying to relieve their reunion after 25 to 27 years by acting like boy-scouts.

                The film opens with the grown-ups as children remembering demoting a couple of bullying members from the group and later getting their revenge on the remaining ones and causing them a lot of trouble. The others are (in their self-playing roles) Louie Anderson, the leader, Richard Lewis, who is very neurotic, Richard Belzer who is a horny womanizer, Franklyn Ajaye, the smooth talker, and surfer dude Tim Thomerson. They eventually go their own separate ways but Louie wants to reunite with them badly after 25 years and go with them the Mountains in some fictional state with no name (It’s been reported that the film was shot in Wyoming). Even the demoted bullies want to spend their vacation after rediscovering their childhood friends for those same 25 years. Meanwhile at a Pancake house, the escaped-con known as The Duke Of Earle (John Goodman), who hates pancakes himself gives its manager a piece of his mind after betraying him to prison. And that’s where the conflict begins, no more, no less. After all that in “The Wrong Guys”, I kept begging it to work because I felt that John Goodman’s character might save it. Frankly, I’ve been finding the film more and more disappointing on its stupidity; it doesn’t work honestly with any of its writing, but only uses it as tricks for tired jokes.

                If the movie has presented John Goodman’s role with unrevealed potential, the rest of it is absolutely horrendous. Consider, for example, the scene where Richard Belzer and Tim Thomerson sneaking into an all-girls spa. They seem to mistake two ugly whores (whom they seem secretly married to the childhood bullies) for very hot women, and I got tired of this boring film more and more because I find that this is a lame excuse for avoiding dark comic dialogue that would have been writing for every scene where the Grown-Ups handle John Goodman’s danger.

                I also must question John Goodman in this film hating pancakes. Why must he hate that meal after having interest of reading John Goodman’s name mentioned in the opening credits later revealing that his a dangerous ex-con? And what about his surprisingly overplaying the villain role here? After Goodman’s Duke Of Earle has been completely presented, hating Pancakes with a passion I didn’t know what to expect, except shooting a giant pancake statue with uncontrolled anger and even hitting it harder when escaping with his accomplices (one of them played by Ghostbuster himself Ernie Hudson) with his pick-up truck. That scene is desperately impossible – I know it’s normal for a person to dislike pancakes but why let The Duke Of Earle hate them so much by fulfilling his meanness?

                Well, what's worse is that, in a movie filled with boring scenes, there is no scene at all which reveals his harsh hatred for pancakes. The only good performances in this film are those by Ernie Hudson and Tim Van Patten as the two accomplices who want to calm Goodman down.The rest of the cast, even Goodman himself, seem to have been lost in a kid’s film wannabe; there is never a moment when I felt they were really experiencing the feelings in this movie. Not even the irrational scene where Goodman goes around being disdainful to pancakes.

The Window (1949)

 

THE WINDOW (1949)

By Ralph Santini - ***½

Renowned cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff’s directorial effort “The Window” (1949) is quite possibly one of the finest B Noirs ever made. A modern re-telling of the often popular fairy tale “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” it thrilled and exited me for its entire 73 minutes by watching an excellent story of a young boy named Tommy (marvelously portrayed by future Peter Pan voice Bobby Driscoll) who becomes a witness to murder, when a married couple kill a man in his apartment up top. This will lead him to a tense kidnapping by that same murderous couple and the problem here is that Tommy has been making up mischievous stories, including one that leads their parents nearly losing their apartment because of it, therefore leading Tommy’s own parents not believing him about the true murder.

There is no doubt about why this terrific film noir is highly well-known among, at least, B-movie buffs and that’s because of the brilliant talent behind this gem. Before directing this film, Ted Tetzlaff was the cameraman behind such other treasures, the best example being the finest romantic comedy of all, 1936’s “My Man Godfrey” among others. His last film before his directorial debut with “The Window” is Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious” and it’s no wonder why this film can be as Hitchcockian as it can get.

I thought Bobby Driscoll’s portrayal of Tommy represented what might they call an “eye of the storm” so well because he can perfectly portray a boy who likes to tell his cockeyed tall tales to his youngster pals that tragically spans to other adults leading to another couple wanting attempting to move in Tommy’s own apartment. Even if Tommy discovered the murder committed by his own neighbors, known as Mr. and Mrs. Kellerson (Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman, both of them equally brilliant) no one will believe him since he ‘cried-wolf’ so many times; no one but the Kellersons themselves fearing their safety might threatened by Tommy’s realistic reaction to their cold-blooded murder and that’s why they want to kill him in order to get away with it.

This film is also loaded with a couple of more terrific performances by the actors who portray Tommy’s parents, Arthur Kennedy as the father and Barbara Hale as the mother. Another bravura source in this film is the gripping music by Roy Webb. All of these great results lead me to confirm that this film is absolutely compelling and definitely one of 1949’s best films. It demands multiple viewings because I think the filmmakers do an amazing job of making Tommy’s witness to a murder a perilous journey and a gripping experience that leads us wondering what will happen at the end. Strongly recommended, not to be missed.

The War Wagon (1967)

THE WAR WAGON (1967)

By Ralph Santini - ***

The late film critic Roger Ebert called The War Wagon “that comparative rarity, a Western filmed with quiet good humor”. As a matter in fact, I agree with him. It’s a superior 60s Hollywood western that kept me not only thrilled but also smiling at the film’s witty humor, as described by Ebert. The Duke is cast as Taw Jackson, a rather nasty old cowboy whose goal is to get his ranch back from scheming mining businessman Mr. Pierce (Bruce Cabot). But since he is too well guarded by a bunch of his thugs, Jackson decides to make an unlikely band of robbers that are all different as night and day. The operation will be a raid on a special vehicle owned by Pierce that’s known as The War Wagon.

The first guy Taw Jackson wants to use will be Lomax (Kirk Douglas) because he’s quite the shooting marksman. Lomax however distrusts him because he claims Jackson is the only man that he shot and never has killed telling Jackson he caused him lot of embarrassment. This incident led to Taw Jackson serving a prison sentence that luckily paroled him for after three years. However Jackson is willing to pay Lomax $100, 0000 for his presence for that raid on The War Wagon Jackson planned.

The second person Jackson needs is an Indian named Levi Walking Bear who is captured by Mexican bandits after cheating with them on a game of poker. Jackson and Lomax would save him by even luring away the bandits’ horses. The third person for Jackson needed is Billy Hyatt a young man he served in prison with Taw. Although Billy is constantly drunk, which angers Lomax, he is good with making explosives. The final person Taw Jackson needs is grouchy old man, Wes Fletcher, who is employed by Pierce and has bartered a young woman Kate (Valora Noland) whom Billy happens to fall in love. Fletcher however won’t let anybody near her by claiming she’s his wife.

This film is wonderfully directed by Burt Kennedy with great stunts done by Hal Needham. John Wayne and Kirk Douglas are both terrific. They make such surprisingly wonderful chemistry together, clearly because of their difference of political opinion, Wayne who has been a long time conservative and Douglas who always was a staunch liberal. Bruce Cabot also does a wonderful job as the film’s chief antagonist who will do anything to have the Duke’s anti-hero dead even if it means wanting Kirk Douglas’s character to kill that of the Duke’s. John Wayne western fans will sure love “The War Wagon” because it’s a little different from others made in the 1960s. This one at least has memorable comic caper moments with thrilling action and clever surprises. Even the theme song by Dimitri Tiomkin with lyrics by Ned Washington is exciting.

The Vampire (1957)

 

THE VAMPIRE (1957)

 By Ralph Santini - **

                Paul Landres’ “The Vampire” has as its pun that Paul Beecher, a doctor who constantly doesn’t seem to feel good, is a sort of combination of Jekyll and Hyde with Vampires. Its screenplay by Pat Fielder is short on originality and it seems to copy every film adaptation (including the 1941 film by Victor Fleming) of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with no spirit of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It’s not particularly exiting either. The biggest asset of this spook yarn is not its familiar premise but only a satisfying performance by John Beal as the story’s main protagonist.

                In the beginning, Dr. Beecher is alarmed that a scientist was dying in his laboratory and warns him not to take some capsule pills the scientist was using on his animals.  The only problem is that when Dr. Beecher isn’t feeling well he asks his daughter for those same pills the scientist warned not to take. After that, it would be revealed that two people were killed with vampire bites on their neck. That’s right, they are under attack by the title role of this film. That’s not all, it turns out that these pill do indeed make Dr. Beecher become a Jekyll and Hyde-like Vampire. And with that all he does is kill his colleagues (including an old psychologist friend) and attacks a beautiful nurse whom a cop has the hots for, aside from working on the murder cases that were Beecher’s victims.

                The more this film is thought about, the more it can be interested on why it’s lacking on spectacle. The biggest problem is that since there is too much sympathy for the character of Dr. Beecher there is no reason to be afraid of him. But underneath that, alas, is the screenplay’s trite representation of the hero turned villain. As said before, with the exception of the fine portrayal by Beal in this film, there is nothing much more to satisfy with its triviality. The special effects are relentlessly crude, there are not much thrills here and the screenplay is shockingly third-rate. It’s only a try-hard by becoming a lame-brained cross of Jekyll and Hyde and vampire stories.