Movie Review: Three Amigos! (1986)

Genre: Comedy Western  

Director: John Landis  

Starring: Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short  

Running Time: 103 minutes  

Synopsis: In 1916, Lucky, Dusty, and Ned (Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short) are none-too-bright Hollywood stars who portray the dashing Three Amigos in a series of western movies. When they demand more pay, their producer (Joe Mategna) fires them. The Amigos respond to a telegram from Mexican villager Carmen (Patrice Martinez), believing they are putting on a show in return for an appearance fee. In fact Carmen needs the Amigos to rid her village of Santa Poco from dastardly villain El Guapo and his ruthless men.

What Works Well: Director John Landis finds some joy when he leans into The Magnificent Seven ethos and Spaghetti Western aesthetics. The Randy Newman songs glorify campiness, and capture the comedy spirit better than the script.

What Does Not Work As Well: Most of the jokes are dependent on exceptionally dim-witted behaviour, and so quite predictably fall flat for anyone over the age of 12. Martin, Short, and Chase share the screentime but rarely get opportunities to shine, with Chase seemingly the most disinterested. The local Mexican characters are imprisoned within stereotypical classifications: simple villagers, lustful bandits, and sweaty cantina occupants.

Key Quote:

Lucky: Well, we're just gonna have to use our brains.

Ned and Dusty: Damn it!



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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?

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Movie Review: Caddyshack (1980)

A comedy set at an exclusive golf club, Caddyshack overflows with often hilarious characters and events. Despite the absence of structure and plot, most of the jokes find their target.

Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe) is a caddy at the members-only Bushwood Country Club. The members include laidback businessman Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), an expert golfer who plays for fun, and the much more competitive and highly strung Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight). Slightly unhinged assistant groundskeeper Carl (Bill Murray) is tasked with eliminating a gopher burrowing under the golf course.

Danny is desperate to secure a college scholarship and tries to cozy up to members for financial help. The arrival of loud and brash businessman Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield) infuriates the Judge, setting the two men on a collision course. Meanwhile the Judge's niece Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan) showers sexual sparks all over the golf course.

A series of sketches only loosely tied together, Caddyshack has no cohesive story to speak of. The origins of the script, co-written by Brian Doyle-Murray and director Harold Ramis, may have been to focus on the misadventures of horny caddies drawn from their own experiences. But by the time the editing and improvisation was done, the film became an uproarious hodge podge of skits, poking fun at the haughty culture and diverse personalities populating a typical country club.

The confluence of comic talent featuring Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield, each adhering to his own style, is a lightning-in-a-bottle cinematic event. They bulldoze through the movie almost oblivious to each other, which only adds to the throw-stuff-at-the-wall attitude.

Murray spends the film dreaming up increasingly destructive methods to eliminate one gopher. Chase is coolness personified until his game cracks under pressure. Dangerfield's mouth, clothes and equipment are loud enough to threaten the club's entire existence. With able support from Ted Knight and Michael O'Keefe, their scenes of dialogue are often made-up but also inspired, talent let loose on the greens.

The highlights are many, including the classic chocolate bar in a swimming pool, Al's introductory stream of taunts immediately throwing the Judge off his game, and Carl resorting to questionable military tactics to solve his problem once and for all. Snippets of life as a caddy do make into the movie, including hauling oversized equipment and escorting doddering seniors around the course. Meanwhile Lacey just wants to have fun, undermining all of Danny's good work in sidling up to her uncle to secure his scholarship.

As can be expected some sequences just don't work, including a carnage-on-the-water yacht demolition derby. But overall Caddyshack lustily yells "fore!" and claims a deserved birdie.

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Movie Review: Seems Like Old Times (1980)

A meek comedy, Seems Like Old Times attempts to recreate the screwball vibe of the 1930s and 1940s but falls flat.

Author Nick Gardenia (Chevy Chase) is abducted from an isolated cabin overlooking Big Sur by two goons, and forced to rob a bank in Carmel. Now a wanted man, Nick escapes his captors and makes his way to the house of his ex-wife Glenda Parks (Goldie Hawn), a kind hearted defence attorney. She is now married to district attorney Ira (Charles Grodin), who has been tapped by the Governor to be the next state attorney general.

Nick appeals to Glenda for help, and also starts to try and win her heart back. In a series of increasingly frantic episodes she keeps him hidden from Ira, who starts to become suspicious as his wife's behaviour grows more erratic.

Written for the screen by Neil Simon and directed by Jay Sandrich, Seems Like Old Times is repetitive, boring and homebound. Although a few good laughs are delivered in isolation, the film runs out of ideas and energy by about the 20 minute mark when Nick arrives at Glenda's house. What follows is 80 minutes of contrived set-pieces consisting of Nick hiding, Glenda covering for him and Ira seething.

Simon's material normally contains a reliable level of quality, but not here. The dearth of ideas is sometimes shocking, as evidenced by repeating the hide-under-the-bed trick, as well as as the gate-crash-the-party episode. For a simple short duration comedy to recycle its own already feeble jokes is inexcusable.

Sandrich spent his directing career in television, and this was his only cinematic outing. The film has all the imagination of a sitcom, with most of the action confined to the Parks house and cheap props like the gaggle of dogs and criminal employees overused and then dropped when it's time to wrap things up.

Chevy Chase delivers his usual smug-but-stupid persona while Hawn often resorts to wide-eyed hysteria. Grodin emerges with some credit as the straightman husband running out of patience with his far from convincing wife.

Seems Like Old Times carries the double meaning of rekindling Nick and Glenda's spark and recalling the glory days of screwball comedies, but on both counts fails to deliver good times.

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The Movies Of Chevy Chase

All movies starring Chevy Chase and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Caddyshack (1980)



Seems Like Old Times (1980)



National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)



European Vacation (1985)



Three Amigos! (1986)

L.A. Story (1991, cameo)



Cops And Robbersons (1994)



Vegas Vacation (1997)



Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Cops And Robbersons (1994)

A feeble comedy, Cops And Robbersons contains no laughs and plenty of stupidity.

Norman and Helen Robberson (Chevy Chase and Dianne Wiest) are a typical married couple raising their three kids in suburbia. Norman is a television police show geek, but his family is drifting apart. Veteran cop Jake Stone (Jack Palance) and his younger partner Tony Moore (David Barry Gray) need to set up a stakeout to keep close tabs on master forger and killer Osborn (Robert Davi), who happens to live next door to the Robbersons.

Jake and Tony invade Norman's house and set up an observation post in an upstairs bedroom. The family struggles to adjust to the unwelcome visitors, but gradually Jake starts to earn the respect of the Robbersons in a way that Norman never could. With Osborn plotting a big new deal, Norman interferes with the stakeout, frustrating Jake, while Norman's daughter Cindy (Fay Masterson) sets her eyes on the dishy young Tony.

Directed by Michael Ritchie and written by Lindsay Maher, Cops and Robbersons is 93 minutes of abject tedium. Only fans of Chevy Chase enthralled by his stupid family guy schtick will find any pleasure in an underdeveloped and tired story that never gains any traction. The characters are barely defined, the evil crimes of Osborn are mostly unexplained, and both the police work and the attempted comedy are half hearted and generally comatose.

The film is largely housebound, the energy level static, the production values reeking of an underfunded television show.

With almost nothing to work with, Ritchie leans heavily on Jack Palance, and he hisses his way through the film in a caricature of his late career City Slickers-propelled resurgence. The problem is that Palance, here at age 75, is far too old to be a convincing cop and genuinely seems to be struggling to get his lines out. The only tension in the film is whether Palance the actor will make it through his scenes intact.

Cops And Robbersons has neither chuckles nor action: just stars and a director who should know better, wallowing in the muck.

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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.

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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.

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