Funny Farm
Chevy Chaseās stature as being one of the funniest human beings to exist during the 1980s remains forever intact, but the interesting thing about his legacy is that compared to his other esteemed peers of the time, he starred in almost as many duds as he did undisputed comedy classics, a phenomenon that can be easily chalked up to just how PROLIFIC he was during that decade, having anywhere from 2 to 3 movies a year go out into wide release so any films of his that would fail either artistically or commercially were just considered to be the result of him having so much product out there with his name and drawing power attached to it. One such example of a film of his that pretty much failed all the way around was this 1988 release (although Chase himself has reportedly cited this as being his personal favorite out of all his films), a social satire disguised as a fish out of water country bumpkin yukfest directed by George Roy Hill (certainly no lightweight himself in the comedy department) in what would for him be his last film ever. The problems stem from a number of issues, the first of which is that Chaseās character (a big city sportswriter who quits his job and moves to some small remote country town in Vermont in order to write his first novel) is written to be as bland as humanly possible as Chase himself appears to be tightly reined in from doing much adlibbing, an ability for which he was truly gifted. Paired with Madolyn Smith (a rising actress at the time whom several prominent critics had earmarked for major stardom before she suddenly retired and married a hockey player) as his wife, the duo fail at being either a chemistry dripping romantic couple nor a witty repartee spouting comedy team and the film sadly chooses to rely mostly on the two of them together and not on the nicely selected cast of offbeat character actors playing the townspeople. Chase and Roy Hill made perhaps a conscious decision to have this be more of a family friendly, accessible, PG rated movie in contrast to the original book which it was based upon (released only 3 years prior) that in comparison was decidedly profane and R rated on the written page. Upon moving to this country town in the middle of nowhere, it isnāt long before Chase and his wife begin to notice that the townspeople themselves arenāt quite right, mostly a bunch of nasty types starting off memorably with the crazed mailman barreling down the street at top speed all while laughing maniacally and tossing their mail onto the side of the road before speeding off (and whom is seen up close only one time in perhaps the filmās most memorable scene). Thereās also the town sheriff who is driven around in a cab since he flunked his driverās ed exam and a mishmash of other types who are mostly distinguished by their memorable faces. The idea of these local townspeople being such a gothic bunch of sideshow freaks that the comparatively normal Chase is going to have to engage with frequently throughout the movie is sadly cut short by putting way too much focus into one on one scenes between Chase and his wife. The running gag here is that about every two minutes or so, a major mishap must occur involving Chase and his wife that is supposed to result in a beal of laughter from the viewer, but unfortunately not enough of these moments are derived from interactions between them and the locals but mostly instead on the concept that Chaseās efforts as a writer (the filmās weirdest scene has him giving his wife the manuscript for his first novel and then constantly hovering over her waiting for her reaction) are pretty much a disaster and that he sucks completely at fictional storytelling (with the described plot of that first novel being a bland heist story that sounds like a complete ripoff of Oceanās Eleven), a fact that his wife must tearfully convey to him upon being forced to read it. The problem with this is that itās 1) not funny and 2) not very believable at least in the way that itās portrayed, escalating eventually to Chase becoming an alcoholic and his wife demanding a divorce. Chaseās complete lack of spark in his comic abilities can be seen during his ādrunkā scenes, coming across as being way too mellow when he could have just as easily gotten some serious comedic mileage out of this sort of material. The third act which sees the estranged couple put the house up for sale and (even better) actually bribe the deranged locals to act ānormalā when any potential buyers are in town in order to move things along quicker is probably the funniest part of the movie, an idea only negated by the fact that the townspeople themselves have spent far too much time on the sidelines instead of being allowed to have their will to be weird clash head on with the much more straitlaced couple. Still, we get some funny bits out of it here and there when the local lunatics start throwing themselves into pretending to be model citizens in order to usher out Chase and bring in some easily fooled new residents whom they can also enjoy tormenting. Mostly though, the film depends greatly on having many of its comedic moments be out of left field mishaps that only involve Chase and his wife and if this film were truly intended to be a two character piece, then that arrangement might have worked if not for the strict PG writing here, a surprise since Roy Hill had directed Slap Shot and Chase seemed more determined to stick to the script rather than just doing his regular thing and it shows in how bland he is (allegedly Robin Williams had been offered the part and turned it down for that exact same reason), making this another one of those 80s failures for Chevy that he seemed to be able to absorb so well with little to no damage to his overall careerā¦
5/10