Stir Crazy
Many people today still remember the movie comedy team-ups between the two legends Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor even though the irony of those films was that Wilder was the real star and Pryor essentially played second fiddle. This 1980 release was by far the most financially successful of their films, grossing over $100 million dollars that year (a lot by those standards) but might actually be one of the weakest of their collaborations due to an uneven script, pedestrian directing (by legendary actor Sidney Poitier!), and a slew of uninteresting supporting characters. The setup is funny enough, as best friends Wilder and Pryor wind up getting fired from their New York City jobs in the same day, with Wilderâs ladies man and department store detective lustfully hitting on a (very hot) customer as he falsely accuses her of shoplifting while trying to pick her up, and Pryor even funnier while serving as a waiter at a rich, white, upscale dinner party, winds up getting his marijuana stash mixed into their salads and oregano making for the diners becoming extremely relaxed to put it mildly. Wilder hits upon the idea of leaving New York and heading west to California, where the circumstances are even groovier for someone with Wilderâs touchy feely sensitive outlook, and Pryor agrees on the idea that the women out there are even better. They make it out to a small town in Arizona where their car breaks down, so to make ends meet, they get a job working at a bank as chicken mascots complete with a little song and dance, but when it so happens that they get framed for robbing that bank, off they go to prison with a hardline 125 year sentence, and of course that is where the movie really begins. The problem is that much of this material is just not very funny, with the two stars seemingly adlibbing the best moments out of thin air, but it only goes so far, as Pryor seems adrift most of the time with little to do (not surprising, since reportedly he was heavily freebasing cocaine during filming), and Wilder getting the spotlight as he turns out to be a talented bullrider, which it would seem is more important to the warden (Barry Corbin) than anything, but when Wilder turns down the chance to take part in the annual prison rodeo, he assigns his head guard (Craig T. Nelson) the task of âbreakingâ Wilder, with the best moments of the movie being those attempts and Wilderâs wistful refusal to let any of it get to him until they pose a threat to his best friend Pryor. Unfortunately, the one thing any prison movie needs is compelling characters for the other prisoners, and this one just doesnât add up, from the Mexican prisoner who teaches Wilder about rodeo, to the gay black convict who constantly follows Pryor around, to the various antagonist characters, none of them is at all very interesting or well written, with the one exception being Erland (Dynamo) Van Lidth as a very large mass murderer whom they manage to befriend. Itâs also gotta be said that as a director, Poitier never finds a proper rhythm for the story itself, allowing it to drag and even go limp with many of its murky character motivations and an absolutely atrocious sound mix that doesnât even let the dialogue be heard properly during scenes with music playing or loud noise. As the film builds to its climax where Wilder (or rather his stunt double) competes at the rodeo, the film attempts to string together several plot threads, from our two leads and their friends attempting a prison break during the event, to the warden making a large bet with the warden from the competing prison over whose rodeo team wins, to Nelson planning to kill Wilder by making him ride a bull guaranteed to stomp him to death, to a beautiful social worker (JoBeth Williams) gathering the proof to clear their names of the crime, it never quite gels cohesively to make for a great (or even good) comedy, one which doesnât really hold up well today and should only be viewed by fans of its two stars, if just to see them doing lesser quality workâŚ
4/10