The title is simple enough, so what's the plot?
"Beer" is a comedy that I appreciated, not so much for the laughs, but more for the content. It is a satirical look at advertising with a laser focus on beer commercials.
Norbecker beer is struggling with sales, lagging woefully behind behemoths such as Budweiser and Michelob. The company owner, Adolph Norbecker (Kenneth Mars), is spending $50M a year on ads and he's questioning his current relationship with The Feemer Agency, the main ad company he deals with. The Feemer Agency, and by extension Norbecker beer, get a significant break when a savvy, ruthless, corporate woman named BD Tucker (Loretta Swit) has a great idea. She wants to use the average man as the face of Norbecker Beer. It's a great idea but where will she find this man, or men?
She has a serendipitous encounter with three men who are liberally labeled as heroes when a robber is apprehended. Elliot (David Alan Grier), Merle (William Russ), and Frankie (Saul Stein) simply piled on top of the robber after he was hilariously knocked out. For that act they were called heroes and they would be the new faces of Norbecker Beer.
Even if we were to generously call them "heroes" for piling on top of an unconscious armed robber, what Tucker made them into was almost divinity. She took their feeble act of "bravery" and with the help of camera magic and misleading advertisement made it into a selfless act of heroism.
This movie was so enjoyable because of the accurate depiction of beer companies and beer commercials. It's laughable that a guy could be transformed into a strong, brave, desirable man with a flock of beautiful women by simply drinking X brand of beer. The Feemer Agency, wanting to one-up the competition, became more unprincipled as sales ballooned for Norbecker. They were shameless in their exploitation of women and duplicitous depiction of average men who drank Norbecker beer. There was no moral floor for The Feemer Agency and Norbecker as they were governed only by the book of sales.
As The Feemer Agency became more degenerate you wondered how it was going to end. The three men were becoming more "woke" which would bring them in direct conflict with BD Tucker who was completely without conscience. It did, and everything fell apart when the three men were caught having a fight in a gay bar. It was not the best ending, but it showed just how unprincipled Norbecker beer was. From that situation they pivoted off of the "are you tough enough" slogan to the "are you sensitive enough" slogan. Just showing that people will come and go but the wheels of the commercial machine will keep turning.
"Beer" is a comedy that I appreciated, not so much for the laughs, but more for the content. It is a satirical look at advertising with a laser focus on beer commercials.
Norbecker beer is struggling with sales, lagging woefully behind behemoths such as Budweiser and Michelob. The company owner, Adolph Norbecker (Kenneth Mars), is spending $50M a year on ads and he's questioning his current relationship with The Feemer Agency, the main ad company he deals with. The Feemer Agency, and by extension Norbecker beer, get a significant break when a savvy, ruthless, corporate woman named BD Tucker (Loretta Swit) has a great idea. She wants to use the average man as the face of Norbecker Beer. It's a great idea but where will she find this man, or men?
She has a serendipitous encounter with three men who are liberally labeled as heroes when a robber is apprehended. Elliot (David Alan Grier), Merle (William Russ), and Frankie (Saul Stein) simply piled on top of the robber after he was hilariously knocked out. For that act they were called heroes and they would be the new faces of Norbecker Beer.
Even if we were to generously call them "heroes" for piling on top of an unconscious armed robber, what Tucker made them into was almost divinity. She took their feeble act of "bravery" and with the help of camera magic and misleading advertisement made it into a selfless act of heroism.
This movie was so enjoyable because of the accurate depiction of beer companies and beer commercials. It's laughable that a guy could be transformed into a strong, brave, desirable man with a flock of beautiful women by simply drinking X brand of beer. The Feemer Agency, wanting to one-up the competition, became more unprincipled as sales ballooned for Norbecker. They were shameless in their exploitation of women and duplicitous depiction of average men who drank Norbecker beer. There was no moral floor for The Feemer Agency and Norbecker as they were governed only by the book of sales.
As The Feemer Agency became more degenerate you wondered how it was going to end. The three men were becoming more "woke" which would bring them in direct conflict with BD Tucker who was completely without conscience. It did, and everything fell apart when the three men were caught having a fight in a gay bar. It was not the best ending, but it showed just how unprincipled Norbecker beer was. From that situation they pivoted off of the "are you tough enough" slogan to the "are you sensitive enough" slogan. Just showing that people will come and go but the wheels of the commercial machine will keep turning.