Before watching this film, I was never expecting a spectacular movie experience. I'll admit to being a fan of those silly fast paced feel good ending 80s comedies, those early Eddie Murphy or Michael J. Fox films being the best example of these. This is the style I was expecting, and I think is what the director was aiming for, but falling very very far from the mark!
The premise could have worked: white kid from rich background decides to pass for a poor black boy to get a scholarship to a top American university. In doing so, he learns harsh lessons about racism and class divides, etc... Plenty of room for some fun jokes, taking the mike out of the real life stereotypes at those top American university establishments, and still come out of it without too much complications and a good morality tale. But what you end up with is a film in which you keep waiting for a really good punchline to arrive, no real surprise turn at any point whatsoever and a lot of pent up frustration by the end for having wasted an hour and half of your life.
By the standards of those previously mentioned 80s comedies, this films' budget couldn't have been that bad, and although the scripts is basic at best, I'm sure at least a bit more could have extracted from it. The main culprits for this waste of film stock have to be the director who does not seem to have put any thought to the direction or elaboration of his script to put it onto screen, and the lead actor C. Thomas Howell. In the same year, he played the stalked young lead in The Hitcher, which has now become somewhat of an 80s cult reference to horror thrillers; this is to say that Mr Howell was not necessarily a bad actor, but definitely a bad comedian. He has no comic timing, a necessity in this form of entertainment, no real talent at expressional comedy, and has no clue when to keep a serious face and when to lighten-up. Although again a large part of this has to go down to bad directorship. Rae Dawn Chong, in the main female lead, does well with what she has, without ever pushing the film to any kind of redemptive level. Coming the closest to doing this is James Earl Jones, who is so hopelessly under-used you have to wonder if he didn't just walk out on the production when he saw how terrible it was. The same could be said of Julia Louis-Dreyfus(Elaine from Seinfeld) and Leslie Nielsen, who have so little screen time it's easy to forget they were actually in this poor excuse for a movie.
When I first bought the DVD to this movie, even though I had no idea how good, or bad(as the case may be), it would be, I was really chuffed with myself, having found it in the sales for 2 pounds. And even more pleased at the till, where it seemed the guy forgot to swipe it properly with the rest of my items so I didn't even pay for it! Now I see the nice man at the till had obviously seen this film, felt sorry for me, and that watching this film was going to be punishment enough that he shouldn't make me pay for it as well.
The premise could have worked: white kid from rich background decides to pass for a poor black boy to get a scholarship to a top American university. In doing so, he learns harsh lessons about racism and class divides, etc... Plenty of room for some fun jokes, taking the mike out of the real life stereotypes at those top American university establishments, and still come out of it without too much complications and a good morality tale. But what you end up with is a film in which you keep waiting for a really good punchline to arrive, no real surprise turn at any point whatsoever and a lot of pent up frustration by the end for having wasted an hour and half of your life.
By the standards of those previously mentioned 80s comedies, this films' budget couldn't have been that bad, and although the scripts is basic at best, I'm sure at least a bit more could have extracted from it. The main culprits for this waste of film stock have to be the director who does not seem to have put any thought to the direction or elaboration of his script to put it onto screen, and the lead actor C. Thomas Howell. In the same year, he played the stalked young lead in The Hitcher, which has now become somewhat of an 80s cult reference to horror thrillers; this is to say that Mr Howell was not necessarily a bad actor, but definitely a bad comedian. He has no comic timing, a necessity in this form of entertainment, no real talent at expressional comedy, and has no clue when to keep a serious face and when to lighten-up. Although again a large part of this has to go down to bad directorship. Rae Dawn Chong, in the main female lead, does well with what she has, without ever pushing the film to any kind of redemptive level. Coming the closest to doing this is James Earl Jones, who is so hopelessly under-used you have to wonder if he didn't just walk out on the production when he saw how terrible it was. The same could be said of Julia Louis-Dreyfus(Elaine from Seinfeld) and Leslie Nielsen, who have so little screen time it's easy to forget they were actually in this poor excuse for a movie.
When I first bought the DVD to this movie, even though I had no idea how good, or bad(as the case may be), it would be, I was really chuffed with myself, having found it in the sales for 2 pounds. And even more pleased at the till, where it seemed the guy forgot to swipe it properly with the rest of my items so I didn't even pay for it! Now I see the nice man at the till had obviously seen this film, felt sorry for me, and that watching this film was going to be punishment enough that he shouldn't make me pay for it as well.