However, one thing I did spot from the remake was that it stars John C. McGinley. To me this was good news as I am a big fan of the TV series 'Scrubs' and in particular the sarcastic, permanently angry and bitter Dr Perry Cox.
My favourite sarcastic bite from Dr. Cox has to be, (to JD):
'Good God in heaven, Newbie, there are just so very many ways for me to say this to you: Never; not in a million years; absolutely not; no way, Jose; no chance, Lance; niet; negatory; mm-mm; nuh-uh; oh-oh; and of course my own personal favorite of all time, man falling off of a cliff -Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!…'.
Unfortunately, the appearance of McGinley is not a cast iron guarantee for a good movie. It was only back at #96 in which we last saw McGinley, in the non-sensical calamity that is Highlander 2. So I wasn’t holding up much hope of a decent film and within 10 minutes of this movie, I gave up altogether.
Car 54 revolves around the partnership of Officer Gunther Toody, (David Johansen) and Officer Francis Muldoon, (John C. McGinley). Toody is a laid back slob with a liberal attitude to the law, whereas Muldoon is straight and narrow, regimented and a ‘play by the rules’ type of guy. I did not see the original movie poster, but I can only imagine that the tagline would have been something like, ‘They are the new odd couple, with hilarious consequences!’.
Toody and Muldoon are assigned to protect whistleblower and former bookkeeper to the local mob, Herbert Hortz, (Jeremy Piven). Hortz is giving evidence against mob boss Don Motti, (Daniel Baldwin) and Motti tries various unfunny ways to kill him. Personally, if I was Hortz I wouldn't sweat it as Motti is about as scary as a picture of ducklings painted on cotton wool. Recyling an old gag from my Gigli review, (which if you're interested, here's the link: #72 Gigli review), Don Motti? John Motson more like.
And that is basically it, the movie stumbles from one farce to another without once raising a laugh. Motti gets caught and jailed, unlucky in love Muldoon finally gets a girlfriend and Hortz finds true love with 2 prostitutes.
This movie is terrible and for so many reasons. The main one for me is David Johansen’s voice which rasps and grinds for 90 minutes. Johansen really has the most grating annoying voice I have ever heard and there is no way he should be the lead actor in a movie. By the end blood was pouring out of my ears from the constant noise which abused my lugholes.
An annoying trait of Johansen is his insistence of speaking with his mouth full. Every scene seems to involve him stuffing his face with some free food from a street vendor and shouting whilst displaying half chewed hot dog to the audience. His mouth is massive and takes up most of the screen and well, I’m not a prood by any means, but please, please, please shut your mouth when eating. There are many reasons why I am glad I did not watch this at the cinema and not seeing half digested food in someone’s gob, spread over a 20ft high screen is right up there.
The rest of the cast are shockingly bad. Rosie O’Donnell, who plays Toody’s wife Lucille, seems to think acting involves shouting loudly in a bad Brooklyn accent. John C. McGinley is just a watered down unfunny version of Dr. Cox, and Daniel Baldwin? Well, let’s just say if you can’t get Stephen or even William to accept a role in your movie, then you know you are about to produce one hell of a stinker!
The story itself is told in a rather protracted way and there are plenty of unnecessarily long scenes with not a lot happening. This gives the movie an overall sense of dragging along painfully as if you’re trying to walk your one legged tortoise in quick sand.
The film looks very dated, especially when you consider it was released in 1994. A partial explanation is that in actual fact, this movie was completed back in 1990 but for whatever reason, it was held back for 4 years. It would certainly explain why the ‘futuristic’ police equipment Muldoon brings into the precinct looks incredibly old, but not why things like the computer graphics look like the love child of an Atari 2600 and a lump of slate.
The film also makes little or no sense and the opening musical number seems especially lost, (and I really wished it was lost as the sound of Johansen rasping his way through a musical number is enough to make you chew your own head off). Again, a partial explanation for this is that it was originally filmed as a musical comedy but that, according to IMDb, all but 2 songs were edited out of the movie. This at least meant the finished article was shorter than intended and for that I am grateful.
However, it still left us with 89 minutes of pure codswallop and even the 30 second cameo from Penn and Teller could not save this disaster of a film. It’s a poor man’s Dragnet that lacks any charm or, more importantly for a comedy movie, any jokes.
So the question is, would I recommend this film to anyone? Well, Good God in heaven dear reader, there are so very many ways for me to say this to you: Never; not in a million years; absolutely not; no way, Jose; etc.......
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