Reviews

It's hard to determine what Reiner and Van Dyke had in mind when they stumbled into making this phoney-looking film about an obnoxious silent comedian. It falls flat as a comedy or satire, and doesn't even deliver as enjoyably trashy Hollywood drama like Levine's HARLOW or THE CARPETBAGGERS. It's superficial from the get go, told in silly flashback form, with Van Dyke arriving in a stupid clown suit to make his film debut. From there it's all downhill depicting a senseless marriage, a cornball career, and derivative downfall. The picture was a big flop and remains an oddball obscurity in the careers of both Van Dyke and Reiner. Carl Reiner did manage to make up for this ridiculous disaster with his next comedy film, WHERE"S POPPA?, a cult classic of hysterical proportions.

This is a poorly-written TV pilot strictly for low-brow folks who get their kicks watching the faith-and-family network. What's the point of a murder investigation with no violence, no swearing, and worst of all, no sex or nudity. Schaech sure has gone down the tubes since he first appeared in Gregg Arakis' THE DOOM GENERATION and the excellent A CAJUN STORY. There's an overbearing music score that sounds like judgement day, lots of drippy redneck chatter, an ex-military hick sheriff with a big ego and disposable daughter (whose presence is just a nuisance), and let's not leave out the perky partner. It's just another dismal stream you skip.

A so-called Hollywood type is sentenced to TV sitcom hell peopled with Mayberry RFD rejects. He is tortured with adolescent life lessons from white-bread Midwestern folks apparently living it up in a small-town Christian conservative craphole that worships The Andy Griffith Show. Sadly, you can't even enjoy this as a twisted satire of America when it was supposedly great. The plethora of good reviews here are so blatantly phoney that you can be pretty sure they were targeted audiences probably attending free screeners in the basement of their local church (or worse). What you have here is the cheapest kind of rube sentimentality imaginable. Corny and superficial.

The task here is like sitting through a staff meeting at, let's say, ACME WIDGETS INC., trying to define what a widget is. A diverse crowd leads to lots of cheap drama, and there's plenty of fears and tears. Another metaphor would be the usual first day of class in grade school with the usual sizing up of the classmates and curriculum. The filmed session is technically unsatisfying, the participants pretentious, and the whole experience ends up exactly as you'd expect it to. Leigh Ledare's project is ultimately undaring and becomes a rather derivative experiment in the usual discomfort of in-person social interaction in the age of the cell phone.

With all the other reviewers detailing the picture's schematic, I'll just say you'll be hard pressed to find a more unnecessary piece of sentimental trash than this movie. Here's a film as messed up as the current state of the sport it personifies - and for those looking to re-capture the spirit of the first - well, that product-of-its-time has seen it's day, as has Stallone. There are a couple of Stallone speeches here that will induce vomiting. ROCKY is a role model for losers - it's constant attempts to reincarnate the character is proof enough beyond any detailed opinion I can offer. Those paying for this will get exactly what they deserve - but I'm doubtless Stallone is going to find milking this cash cow once again is as futile as him regaining his youth. A piece of advice: watch RAGING BULL - a masterpiece that gets better with time and has more honest emotion in a single minute than all the ROCKY films put together!

You may think that the best-loved, most memorable thing about this minor effort are the dolphin protagonists, but it's the lovely music score by Georges Delerue owning up in that category. This is actually quite a decent cinematic version of a really stupid bestseller of the times, so if you think this film is ludicrous, don't even bother with the book. Maudlin is the term I'd use to describe those moved by the dolphin antics in this lackluster thriller, because the minute they start "Fa La La'ing", keeping a straight face becomes quite difficult; my praise to George C. Scott for managing that so well! This one is now available on DVD from Image Entertainment and they've delivered a wonderful anamorphic widescreen print, which wisely delivers the original 3-track stereophonic sound of the original theatrical prints and beautifully preserves composer Delerue's work.