This certainly is far from being a modern comedy classic, starts off as a very funny parody on the hippie age versus the yuppie age, going from 1969 to 1989 within 20 minutes, and if rather forced, getting some big laughs from me. The problem is that once you get used to one set of characters that Cheech Marin and Eric Roberts run into upon their return to New York after two decades in South America in hiding for draft evasion, you get more, all introduced early on in the lengthy prologue, and from them a few more. Julie Hagerty, once Roberts' girlfriend, is now a highly neurotic fashion designer, and old pal Robert Carradine (coming back in rather late) is a pretentious yuppy, now married to prissy Cindy Williams.
Then there's Louise Lasser as the mother hen of the hippies who doesn't age in 20 years, running a fancy coffee shop that's a haven for annoying tourists and slumming snobs, and Buck Henry and Andrea Martin as Carradine and Williams' neighbors, with Martin falling under Marin's spell. Cliff De Young plays a nasty government agent who has been after Roberts and Marin for decades, accentuated now because of the papers that they have proving that the government is out to start war in a third world South American country so they can take over.
The movie is frequently funny, but overall, it's a bit too much, even though there's a definite feeling of nostalgia in it, both from the '80s point of view to the '60s and the current point of view to the '80s. Various elements of late '80s New York get a big slap in the face, especially the yuppie element which is funnier from the perspective of people who dislike yuppies rather than how it is written. With this cast, it's proof that there can be too much of a good thing, although a reference to the things Roberts has missed includes a nod to Lasser's most famous role and is very funny.
Then there's Louise Lasser as the mother hen of the hippies who doesn't age in 20 years, running a fancy coffee shop that's a haven for annoying tourists and slumming snobs, and Buck Henry and Andrea Martin as Carradine and Williams' neighbors, with Martin falling under Marin's spell. Cliff De Young plays a nasty government agent who has been after Roberts and Marin for decades, accentuated now because of the papers that they have proving that the government is out to start war in a third world South American country so they can take over.
The movie is frequently funny, but overall, it's a bit too much, even though there's a definite feeling of nostalgia in it, both from the '80s point of view to the '60s and the current point of view to the '80s. Various elements of late '80s New York get a big slap in the face, especially the yuppie element which is funnier from the perspective of people who dislike yuppies rather than how it is written. With this cast, it's proof that there can be too much of a good thing, although a reference to the things Roberts has missed includes a nod to Lasser's most famous role and is very funny.