User Reviews

This is the first film of Burt Reynolds' I have seen that he directed as well as starred in. Yes, some elements of the story are clunky but overall STICK is very enjoyable. Reynolds gives an excellent performance as always. Charles Durning is quite good as Chucky but is let down by the very obvious wig he is wearing for the part (at least I HOPE it's a wig). George Segal and Candice Bergen are both good as well, but it's strange how Reynolds and Bergen immediately get into a romance.

Stuntman Dar Robinson also makes a memorable villain as albino hit-man Moke. Since he was a stuntman I guess that means he did all his own stunts for the movie, which makes it even more cool. Very few stuntmen are good actors but Robinson plays the part well. The only problem is we don't see enough of him. The BIG bad guy, Nester, is played brilliantly too, but the actor's name escapes me right now. There's also a lovely song played over the end credits. I'm interested in reading the Elmore Leonard book this film was based on. I'm sure it and the film may be very different, but I still give the movie STICK a thumbs-up. I think it should get a DVD release.

A sharp, punchy, colourful Elmore Leonard novel has here been turned into an extraordinarily dull and uninvolving film. The bulk of the blame must be rested upon Burt Reynolds' shoulders, for in choosing to direct the film himself he has reduced it to the level of a vanity project. This is not "Stick" as envisaged by Elmore Leonard; this is DIRECTOR Reynolds trying to make ACTOR Reynolds look as handsome, tough and humorous as possible..... and, in the process of doing so, ruining the excellent potential of the source material. What makes matters worse is that other fine actors have been dragged down too. George Segal and Charles Durning are humiliated by the dumb lines they are asked to say, the ridiculous costumes they are asked to wear, and the over-acting they are asked to indulge in. Spare a thought, too, for Candice Bergen - already a star in two of THE all-time clunkers (The Magus and The Adventurers) - who here finds herself yet again stranded in a film of unbelievable awfulness.

Tough ex-con Ernest "Stick" Stickley (Reynolds) arrives in Miami soon after his release from jail. He reunites with Rainy (Jose Perez), a former Puerto Rican cell-mate who is trying to make a little money by running errands for the local drug lords. Rainy persuades Stick, against the latter's better judgement, to accompany him on a drop-off in the Everglades. Stick doesn't like the look of the deal, but he tags along anyway. His suspicions prove founded when Rainy is gunned down at the rendezvous point, leaving Stick to make a desperate getaway. Upset at the brutal slaying of his pal, Stick plans his revenge. His vengeance quest pits him against albino hit-man Moke (Dar Robinson), paranoid drug dealer Chucky (Charles Durning), and voodoo-worshipping crime-lord Nestor (Castulo Guerra).

A film with a plot like this and a gallery of slimy underworld characters should, at the very least, not be boring. However, "Stick" is an absolute bore for virtually its entire duration. The opening ten minutes provide a very mild amount of wit and excitement, but as soon as Stick escapes from Rainy's assassins (in the Everglades sequence) it's downhill all the way. Dar Robinson's character - the albino killer Moke - is quite interesting, but is used far too infrequently (he does, at least, have a spectacular death scene near the film's climax). The music by Barry DeVorzon is terribly dated and fails to add any dramatic impact to the on-screen action. Reynolds the director seems to have lost interest in the film somewhere along the way, and the whole sorry affair limps towards its soulless conclusion without generating any interest that might relieve the sense of boredom. After this debacle, Reynolds stopped directing his own movies for a period of 8 years (eventually making a directorial comeback with 1993's "The Man From Left Field"). "Stick" this one on the trash heap!

Not a great movie by any stretch, but filled with lots of comedy, plenty of action and some great Miami scenery, plus the future Murphy Brown, a wild Rip Taylor lookalike (minus the crazy mustache ant confetti), a former child Broadway star and a delightfully funny valet. I am not much of a Burt Reynolds fan, but he's a complete charmer here as an ex-con seeking revenge for the assassination of his friend (Jose Perez, the one time Puerto Rican child actor who played the young son in the original "South Pacific") and the chase scenes he has with the albino hit man, Dar Robinson, who is not the albino hit man from "Foul Play". Richard Lawson is a delight as the valet to wisecracking George Segal, always making with the sarcasm and stealing every scene he's in. That's definitely the difficult to do with Segal as his boss and a platinum haired Charles Durning in the wackiest wig and Hawaiian shirts.

Being set in Miami, there's a lot of Hispanic characters here, and even though he's on and off in the first 20 minutes, Jose Perez shows a lot of heart as Reynolds' pal who just happens to work for a drug lord. Castulo Guerra and David Reynoso are very good as Durning's rivals, friendly on the surface but completely serious when they hint that Durning will be a dead man if their business dealings go sour. Alec Rocco plays a film director, and Bergen is a reporter, somehow much gentler than Murphy. As for Reynolds, he's no different than he was in many of his other films, but in many of his 1980's films, he was less than charming, something that he has here in abundance.

This is filled with a ton of action, gorgeous location footage and even a little bit of romance. A scene with a deadly scorpion crawling up Reynolds is frightening. Of course it's a reunion of Reynolds and a few of his acting pals, most notably Bergen and Durning. It's difficult to say who the standout is because the entire cast each gets to steal a scene or two. I guess the critics in 1985 were in bad moods or simply anti-Burt, and their bad reviews turned this into a flop. So I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did, and it is one Burt Reynolds film that I'll save to share with friends.

Burt Reynolds plays Ernest "Stick" Stickley. We should just stop the plot description right there. But we'll go on - Stick is an ex-con who gets out of jail and ends up working as a chauffeur for a mega-wealthy dude (Segal) and living at his mansion in the Miami area. While he's trying to romance Kyle (Bergen) as well as forge a relationship with his daughter after his prison stay, nefarious drug dealers and gangsters are after Stick, led by the flamboyant Chucky (Durning) and his remorseless hit man Moke (Robinson). Will Stick Stickley stick to the law-abiding side of life? This was the last movie Burt made before his Not Caring period (discussed in our Heat, 1986 review). Because he still cared (after all, he directed the movie and co-wrote the theme song "I Don't Think I'm Ready For You" sung by Anne Murray), his demeanor is actually pleasant to watch and seems to be enjoying himself reasonably enough, by Burt standards. He gets many personas in the movie - from the "Indiana Burt" of the beginning with his bomber jacket, fedora and beard to the "James Bond Burt" of later on, with "Casual Burt" in the middle, complete with pink Members Only jacket. (We're not entirely convinced that it isn't a woman's jacket).

But the real star of the show is Charles Durning as Chucky. In a role like no other we've seen Durning interpret, he plays a Rip Taylor-like villain complete with loud shirts and bizarre makeup. Durning steals the movie, but George Segal gives him a run for his money with his big, boisterous role as Barry.

While Burt is as laconic as ever in front of the camera, he does a good, competent job behind it, clearly influenced by the popularity of Miami Vice. But the movie is a lengthy production with a very mainstream look. It needed more grit. It also should have been shorter and snappier. Elmore Leonard usually does good work but 52 Pick-Up (1986) remains his best.

Clearly the Nickelodeon character Stick Stickley was influenced by Burt Reynolds.

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