User Reviews

I recall seeing this movie on cable sometime during the 1980s. I don't really remember much about the rest of the movie except the closing scene. But that scene made me want to see the film over and over again at the time... alas, Netflix doesn't seem to have a copy.

Again, this was almost twenty years, so I can't be sure this is accurate, but as I recall, in the climactic scene, there are some bad guys chasing the good guys, who decide to escape by stumbling into a production of Otello. They end up on stage, in the midst of the action... bursting through walls, calling out to one another in Italian things like "call the police... he's trying to kill me"... complete with subtitles... The backdrops go up and down in a non-sequitur fashion (this is the "spoiler" part) revealing sets for half a dozen other shows... and finally the curtain falls... and the audience is stunned into silence for an instant, before leaping to its feet for a standing ovation.

The whole rest of the movie might be crap for all I can remember, but I'd love to see it again just to have a chance to see this closing scene one more time.

A few genuinely funny moments don't make up for a comedy where the main plot is overshadowed by the unappealing sexual hijinks of its leading man (Ryan O'Neal) and the unappealing gangster's moll (Mariangela Melato), nearly losing me in the predictable scene where her sexually uninterested criminal lover Richard Kiel arrives while she's trying to seduce O'Neal. The main plot deals with O'Neal's dad (Jack Warden) desperately trying to get into the fashion world and succeeding with the now seemingly tame backless jeans, a big scandal now, but very controversial in the early 80's.

Basically playing the same character he did in "What's Up Doc", O'Neal shows with a bland leading lady that comedy is not his forte, and Melato looks like Shelley Duvall's heavily accented sister. Kiel, without his metal teeth, looks like an extremely tall Robert Goulet. He's at least funny, but it's Warden and the group of eccentric older women he hangs around (particularly Jessica James) who get the laughs. The praise has to go to him, not screenwriter/director Andrew Bergman who has written much better comedies. With a very pretentious accent, Fred Gwynne manages to get laughs as well, basically skewering the type of uptight, unfunny pretentious ivy league professors he's parodying. A throwback to old fashioned screwball comedy that seems to be focused on one joke that doesn't get the laughs lingering.

I'll admit I was mostly curious about this film because of the amazingly beautiful girl on the poster and the concept of the 'bottomless' jeans. Ryan O'Neal is hardly an actor I admire, though he totally did not annoy me in the atmospheric film 'The driver' (1978). Here, he ís pretty annoying.

'So fine' does have its (rare) moments that will make you think some actual thought and effort has gone into it, such as all the mafia / college / opera / fashion / poetry connections. Jack Warden certainly has his moments, as usual, but the rest of the cast is mostly disappointing. Richard Kiel is poorly cast as a crime boss, that pretty girl from the poster turns out to be an average looking middle-aged woman (and not the one on the poster!), and the concept of the bottomless jeans is more like a (plastic) hoax.

The finale (with the chasing and the opera and what not) isn't all too horrible though, and that little scene in which the running gag guy ("Bye everyone!") explains about his three wives is quite funny. But all in all that is not nearly enough for an entertaining movie. Not even that little part by a young Tony 'Paulie Walnuts' Sirico helps.

3 out of 10.

I saw this movie when it came out and although it's been nearly 30 years, the memory of this disaster remains fresh. I'm shocked to see all the rave reviews. I was never a huge fan of Ryan O'Neal, but his presence in this film shows how much his career had deteriorated since "Love Story" and "Paper Moon."

"So Fine" was intended as a satire on the garment industry and the gullibility of the fashion-conscious, in this case, a company that sets the fashion world on fire with jeans with see-through hip pockets. The finale, a disastrous opera production, was intended as an homage to the Marx Bros.' "A Night at the Opera" with "amusing" subtitles, an example being something like "I, Mr. Eddie, have come for my revenge." You couldn't pay me to watch this thing again.

This is one of those movies that wouldn't seem to be very good, until you watch it - once or twice or half a dozen times. Each major actor handles his or her role with aplomb and genuine talent - especially so for the recently deceased and sadly missed Jack Warden. Warden plays a struggling garment maker in New York, with O'Neal as his college-professor son. The various details of the plot can be seen in the other comments, but basically it boils down to the fact that Jack is in debt to Kiel's gangster character ("Mr Eddie") and for some odd reason, Kiel insists on O'Neal joining the business. O'Neal falls for Kiel's lovely but ignored and bored wife, thereby endangering not only the business, but his life. Warden's reactions to the news are priceless, a combination of horror and bemused admiration for O'Neal's lovemaking prowess. Through an accident of timing, O'Neal ends up spending the night under the marriage bed of Kiel and his wife, and since she threw his clothes out the window in a fit of passion, he has to get home in the morning in a pair of her jeans. He splits the rear end of them, and patches them with some clear plastic scavenged from a trash can. His entry to the garment shop creates a stir, and within a few movie moments, the "So Fine" jeans are a national rage. The business back on top, O'Neal heads back to school. However, Mrs. Big Eddie follows him there, then of course Mr. Eddie himself is on the trail, and finally Warden too. The climactic scenes, played out against a college production of "Othello" are hilarious in themselves. But, as several have noted, the funniest line in the movie, and one of the dozen or so best lines ever, is Jack Warden's unabashed question to his love interest in the gondola on the canals of Venice just before the credits roll.

As a send up of the garment industry, provincial colleges, gangsters, Shakespeare, Mozart and various others, this movie hits on many different levels. There are at least a half dozen quick 'funny bits', not the least of which are scenes like Richard Kiel lip-syncing to the Four Season's "Walk like a Man" while stopping for some nourishment at an IHOP-like place, O'Neals impassioned goodbyes to the fellow garment workers, quoting Henry IVs "we few, we happy few" speech, Fred Gwynne's imperious college president turn, the police at the end peering at Keil's Drivers License (note the picture - only his neck and chin show, a "Big man" joke that passes by REALLY FAST), who look at each other in a quizzical fashion, one saying, "Nationality?" and the other, peering at the Othello-made up Kiel's passed out body, "Moor?".

There are so many quick jokes in this movie you really have to watch it four or five times to catch them all. Highly recommended.

The perfect storm of a comedy; many themes come together to create a perfect blend. If you're a New Yorker, had anything to do with the garment industry, brushed against the Mob, laughed at the pretensions of academia and Otello is your favorite opera, this is the funniest movie ever, ever. Okay, those are a lot of constraints but having peripherally known them all, the film's a great parody and can be appreciated on many levels. The plot's based on the concept of jeans that..........well, to say more may be a spoiler so let me just say you can't imagine anyone other than the cast playing any of the major roles. The cast may each giving their best individual comedy performances

If only to see the opera scene near the end when Ryan O'Neil and Richard Kiel end up on-stage in Othello. Ryan's character Bobby has been having an affair with Richard's character Eddie's wife. The wife fills in for the soprano singing in the opera. Eddie knocks out the singer who was playing Othello and take his place on-stage. He then tries to kill his wife in the same part of the story where Othello kills his wife. The whole time they are singing at each other in Italian (I assume) and the subtitles below are translating. Hilarious! Bobby manages to save the wife and they all live happily ever after.

And don't miss all the commercials and montages with the "rear window" jeans.

If it's on one night -- it's worth your time to watch.