Movie Review: Vegas Vacation (1997)

Genre: Comedy  

Director: Stephen Kessler  

Starring: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Wallace Shawn  

Running Time: 93 minutes  

Synopsis: After receiving a work bonus, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) takes his family on a vacation to Las Vegas. His wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) catches the eye of entertainer Wayne Newton (playing himself), while Clark gets addicted to gambling (and losing), ignoring his family in the process. Daughter Audrey (Marisol Nichols) connects with her rough-and-tumble cousin in Vegas' sordid corners, while son Rusty (Ethan Embry) discovers a hidden talent for winning.

What Works Well: This third sequel in the series of Griswold family vacation misadventures captures Vegas' gag-inducing faux glitz and glamour, and the associated gambling dangers. The running time is mercifully short, and a late intervention by Sid Caesar is worth waiting for.

What Does Not Work As Well: Randy Quaid's boorish cousin Eddie keeps getting in the way, plumbing new depths of atrocious behaviour. Clark Griswold's brand of comic ineptitude is low on energy, and the cast responds by just going through the motions. Wayne Newton and Wallace Shawn (as a caustic blackjack dealer) are over-applied to little effect. Most of the jokes miss their targets, including a tired detour to the Hoover Dam.

Key Quote:

Clark: Where the hell is the damn dam tour?

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: American History X (1998)

A forceful and violent crime drama, American History X lifts the lid on the evils of white supremacy and racial hatred corroding civil society's fabric.

In the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, white supremacist Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) kills two Black men breaking into his car. Derek started down the path of extremism as a young teenager when his firefighter father was killed by a Black man. Released after serving a three year sentence, Derek is reformed and eager to prevent his 17-year-old brother Danny (Edward Furlong) from following in his footsteps.

Danny is already falling under the spell of local white supremacist leader Cameron Alexander (Stacy Keach) and the boorish behaviour of neo-Nazi Seth Ryan (Ethan Suplee). However, his high school history teacher Dr. Bob Sweeney (Avery Brooks), who also taught Derek, still believes Danny can be saved. With the threat of hate-motivated violence always nearby, Derek has limited time to influence his brother.

A startling exposé of a virulent ideology, American History X is a past-and-present story of attempted redemption. David McKenna's screenplay spares no pain delving into the heart of hatred, and Edward Norton delivers a cunning performance, especially in the flashback scenes, to demonstrate coiled reasoning fed by fear of the other and released through unchecked violence.

Using an obvious but still effective technique, director Tony Kaye films the flashback scenes in black and white and the present in colour. The sequences charting Derek's rise to street level notoriety as a white supremacist leader are stronger, including a dinner table ruckus where his mother (Beverly D'Angelo) and her new partner (Elliot Gould) finally encounter the beast within the young man. A duel on the basketball courts with Black youth and a raid on a Korean-owned convenience store both buzz with the undercurrent of a scrappy movement gaining strength with local victories.

Derek emerges from prison a different man intent on steering his brother Danny away from hate, and the transformation is only partially successful. Kaye takes the necessary time to reveal what went on behind the prison walls, but when finally stitched together, that part of the story remains dubious. Even less convincing is Danny's response to Derek's U-turn, which shortchanges the effort required to undo years of organic indoctrination.

Despite the shortcuts and a clumsy ending, American History X is painful and stark, achieving shock with relevance.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: European Vacation (1985)

An imbecilic comedy, European Vacation is a braindead exercise in crass antics.

In Chicago, Clark Griswald (Chevy Chase), his wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) and children Audrey and Rusty (Dana Hill and Jason Lively) compete on the Pig in a Poke television game show and win the grand prize: a trip to Europe. Ellen dreams of romancing her husband, the overweight Audrey is horrified that she has to leave her first boyfriend behind, and Rusty daydreams of meeting attractive European girls. Clark just wants the family to enjoy their time together.

The trip starts in London and moves to Paris, Germany and then Rome. At every stop everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong, ratcheting up the tension between the four family members. But Clark soldiers on, determined to have a good time no matter what.

Directed by Amy Heckerling, the first sequel to National Lampoon's Vacation is a wretched film. Utterly devoid of laughs and featuring an endless parade of stupid behaviour compounded by atrocious acting, European Vacation aims for bottom of the barrel jokes: Clark causes three crashes within one block of driving in London. Clark is unable to drive out of a roundabout, stuck circulating for hours. Clark's language skills are mocked by a French waiter. Instead of a romantic evening Clark insists on taking Ellen to a cheap cabaret show, where he behaves like a horny teenager. Clark transforms a Bavarian folk dance into a brawl.

In between the tiresome episodes of Clark being a doofus are churlish jokes involving Audrey either endlessly pining for her boyfriend or surrendering to food impulses, while Rusty allows lust to guide his vacation.

By the time the family gets involved with some cartoonish villains in Rome, the end of the vacation cannot come soon enough. This may all be a commentary about American tourists living down to all expectations while abroad; but it's also a painful 94 minutes of bad slapstick, the search for a singular genuine funny moment anywhere on this European Vacation concluding in abject failure.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

A road trip comedy, National Lampoon's Vacation concocts a hit-and-miss subversive mix of dark humour with seemingly innocent family fun.

The eternally optimistic Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) insists on taking his family on a long road trip from Chicago to the Walley World theme park in Los Angeles. His wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) and kids Rusty and Audrey (Anthony Michael Hall and Dana Barron) are less enthusiastic but pack into the newly acquired garish green Wagon Queen Family Truckster station wagon to embark on the trip.

Along the way they stop in Kansas to visit Ellen's country bumpkin cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn), her husband Eddie (Randy Quaid) and their numerous children. Ellen and Eddie foist Phoenix-bound Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) and her gnarly dog onto the Griswolds. The adventurous episodes continue, including an unscheduled sojourn into the desert and frequent encounters with a beautiful woman (Christie Brinkley) driving a red Ferrari.

Trendsetting for its time, National Lampoon's Vacation was written by John Hughes (based on his short story for National Lampoon magazine), and directed by Harold Ramis. The film features coarse language spouted in front of children, mild nudity, animal cruelty, sudden death, a theme of middle-aged lust, and unhinged behaviour that tips into armed threats. But it's all presented in the context of an uproariously fun family road trip with a cheerful father egging his brood to have a good time.

The film's dual personality is what gives it a sharp edge, because otherwise this is an episodic and fairly sparse comedy singularly lacking in narrative arcs or character depth. Beyond Clark's insistence that the family ought to have fun no matter how little fun they are having, the film trundles on from one set piece to another, fully dependent on abject stupidity to land the Griswolds in their next mess.

Clark's other journey is that of a middle aged man lusting after a mythical sexy girl driving a super sportscar. The reality is that no Christie Brinkley would ever cast a second glance at a doofus like Clark Griswold as he lugs his family around in a ridiculous station wagon, and this is part of Hughes' perverted take on comedy.

Chevy Chase's screen persona of the straight man with a much higher opinion of himself than merited is perfectly deployed to create Griswold, and he arrows through the film on a downward trajectory towards total humiliation. Other funny men appear in small roles, including Eugene Levy as a car salesman and John Candy as a security guard at Walley World.

National Lampoon's Vacation travels the bumpy road of comedy, delivering some laughs, some bewilderment and plenty of silliness.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: High Spirits (1988)

An inane comedy, High Spirits wastes an impressive cast on a juvenile story smothered by a glut of special effects.

In Ireland, the dilapidated Plunkett Castle is facing foreclosure. In desperation, owner Peter Plunkett (Peter O'Toole) decides to leverage the castle's reputation for ghosts and sell a phoney experience to unsuspecting tourists. He trains his staff to play-act the roles of goblins and witches. The first batch of American tourists arrive, including bickering couple Jack and Sharon (Steve Guttenberg and Beverly D'Angelo), as well as a wannabe priest (Peter Gallagher), a nymph (Jennifer Tilly) and a ghost skeptic.

After the fake ghost theatrics prove disastrous, Jack encounters the real ghost of Mary Plunkett (Daryl Hannah), who was murdered on her wedding night by jealous husband Martin Brogan (Liam Neeson) 200 years ago. Jack and Mary fall in love, but have to find a way to be together.

Written and directed by Irishman Neil Jordan, who was fresh off the success of the acclaimed Mona Lisa, High Spirits is what happens when Hollywood throws too much money and influence too soon at an up-and-coming director. Jordan is allowed free reign to inject a lot of Irish and an overdose of special effects into the project, and High Spirits is an unmitigated disaster. Jordan claims the film was butchered by the studio during editing, but it's difficult to imagine any salvageable version emerging from this mess.

The level of overacting is difficult to believe, High Spirits coming across as an ill-conceived macabre play directed at children. All the actors scream their lines, over-emote to distraction, run around as if their hair is on fire, fall down the stairs in antics that stopped being funny in the 1930s, and generally act stupid. They are surrounded by a non-stop stream of cheesy and excessive special effects overused in a manner to suggest grown men were given new technology toys and lacked the basic maturity to apply them in considered doses.

Loud, boring, devoid of laughs and fundamentally lacking any redeeming moments, High Spirits is a colossal fiasco.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Beverly D'Angelo

All movies starring Beverly D'Angelo and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Annie Hall (1977)

Hair (1979)

Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

European Vacation (1985)

High Spirits (1988)

Pacific Heights (1990, uncredited)

Eye For An Eye (1996)

Vegas Vacation (1997)

American History X (1998)

The House Bunny (2008)

The Good House (2021)

All Ace Black Movie Blog Reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Eye For An Eye (1996)

A mother's vigilante justice drama, Eye For An Eye works hard to raise a sweat but remains just one notch above TV movie fare.

Karen and Mack McCann (Sally Field and Ed Harris) have two daughters, teenager Julie (Olivia Burnette) and the much younger Megan (Alexandra Kyle). On the day of Megan's birthday, a home intruder violently rapes and kills Julie. Detective Joe Denillo (Joe Mantegna) arrests lowlife delivery man Robert Doob (Kiefer Sutherland), and with strong DNA evidence linking him to the crime, a conviction appears likely. But Doob escapes justice on a technicality and is released, infuriating Karen.

She joins a victim support group where she befriends the sympathetic Angel Kosinsky (Charlayne Woodard), and secretly starts plotting to take justice into her own hands. She tracks Doob's movements and begins to suspect that he is about to rape and murder again. In desperation, Karen turns to a group of grieving parents who appear to be facilitating vigilante justice, including Sidney Hughes (Philip Baker Hall). But Karen will learn that extracting revenge is much more difficult than she imagined.

Directed by John Schlesinger and adapted from the Erika Holzer novel, Eye For An Eye has above-average talent working with below average material. The urbanite victim frustrated by the justice system and deciding to turn to vigilantism is at least as old as Charles Bronson in Death Wish (1974). That movie and all its sequels and imitators, including women revenge fantasies in such fare as Ms. 45 (1981), squeezed the concept dry a good 15 years before Eye For An Eye.

The film does try, and Schlesinger raises the violence quotient by ensuring that the two rape and murder scenes are harrowing and painful to watch. Forcing Karen McCann to listen-in over a cell phone as her daughter is assaulted adds to the sense of a parent's helplessness and increases the justification for her fury. Sally Field dominates the film and delivers a committed performance, while Kiefer Sutherland does his part by creating in Robert Doob a truly hate-worthy piece of white trash, a psychopath driven by the basest animal instincts to copulate and kill. Doob taunting Karen and Mack in the courtroom after the case against him is thrown out is a classic piece of despicable behaviour.

But the weaknesses of the material are quickly apparent. This is a film in which nothing will be known about Doob's backstory, and most of the strong supporting cast is wasted. Ed Harris, Joe Mategna and Beverly D'Angelo (as Karen's business partner) are derivative characters reduced to the shallowest of line readings, and several potentially interesting sub-stories featuring Angel and Sidney are abandoned when convenient.

Eye For An Eye is predictable revenge fare, arriving late to the party and leaving next to no impression.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Hair (1979)

The film adaptation of the Broadway musical show, Hair the movie rides along with the music. The better songs make for the better screen moments, while the many more mundane musical numbers result in significant stretches of tedium.

The Vietnam War is raging, and idealistic Claude Bukowski (John Savage) leaves the family farm in Oklahoma and heads to New York for a couple of days of sightseeing prior to joining the army. Claude falls in with a group of hippies led by the charismatic Berger (Treat Williams) and his friends Hud (muscular), Jeannie (pregnant) and Woof (very long-haired). The hippies introduce Claude to their anti-war counter-culture and before long he is experimenting with drugs and sleeping in the park.

Claude also falls in love at first sight with rich society girl Sheila (Beverly D'Angelo). Berger arranges for his group to gate-crash a posh party at the house of Sheila's parents, an intrusion that briefly lands Berger, Claude and all their hippie friends in jail. Claude eventually enlists, leaving his New York friends on a sour note as he relocates to Nevada to undergo basic army training. But Berger wants to do good with his new friend, which triggers a cross-country road trip and another reunion between Claude, the hippies and Sheila.

Director Milos Forman and screenwriter Michael Weller took considerable liberties with the story to try and create an experience applicable to the screen. Consisting of very few spoken words, Hair strings along the musical song and dance numbers and attempts to create a passable narrative. But with no time invested to create interesting characters, the film works only in parts. There is plenty of energetic jumping around in the park, but often the prevailing sense is of a group of well-intentioned amateurs getting together for a fun day of hijinks and being caught on film.

The better parts easily coincide with the can't-miss hit songs, Aquarius, Hair, Let The Sunshine In and Manchester providing the backdrop to the more stirring movie sequences. The other impressive highlight features Berger singing I Got Life while dancing and prancing on the all-dressed table at Sheila's stuffy party, the one time that the movie properly nails the essential culture clash at the heart of the musical.

The many other songs may have worked well on stage, but here they occupy chunks of time with not much going on in terms of forward-moving energy. The film stalls early and often as yet another musical number triggers yet another celebration of peace, love, lust, sex, and drugs, a message that is well and truly delivered inside the first 20 minutes.

The actors have little to work with in terms of character development. Claude the innocent, Berger the hippie and Sheila the débutante are exactly that, one-word summaries of stereotypes with no meaningful opportunity for evolution. Savage, Williams and D'Angelo are adequate within the limits imposed on them.

Hair does conjure up an excellent ending, an unintended sacrifice defining the meaning of true friendship. In a movie with as many good hair days as bad hair days, at least the ending is stylishly spiked.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.