Crimewave
Coming off the mindblowing success of his original, unparalleled Evil Dead, a lot of people were wondering just where exactly Sam Raimi was going next in his suddenly red hot directing career. Evil Dead 2 (which topped the original) would come later, but first Raimi decided to branch out into making an all out comedy in 1985 with nonstop references to his idols in The Three Stooges as well as the madcap Looney Tunes cartoons from days long past. With a low budget of $4 million and a pretty good lineup of cult movie actors, the stage seemed set for Raimi to redefine the slapstick comedy in the same way that he had done for horror while still keeping costs down. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. First off, Raimi had once again intended to use his Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell as the lead here, albeit in a more nebbish, nerdy capacity as the bumbling romantic hero who must find a way to take on the bad guys and save the girl of his dreams, but that was not to be as well. Instead, Raimi was literally forced by the producers to drop Campbell as the lead and be forced to go with one Reed Birney, a guy who was handpicked by the producers for some strange reason and once put on camera as a nerdy hero wound up playing it so forced and awkward that he comes across as (despite supposedly being a straight yet sensitive male) a borderline effeminate, creepy type who not only fails to gain the empathy of the viewer, but who also fails completely as a romantic leading man since his overly mannered stylings of playing the character results in him literally turning off his own leading lady onscreen as well as most female viewers watching which not only clearly kills all of the chemistry but at best would only allow him to pass muster as maybe a prototype BFF while totally lacking the charisma which Campbell would have brought to such a key, pivotal starring role. As a result, Raimi managed to recast Campbell (who still served as a co producer on the project) in what would become an expanded supporting role alongside what was still a fine cast by 80s cult standards. But, problems would still persist. Primary villain actor Paul Smith (Bluto from Altman’s Popeye) had constant disagreements with Raimi on the set which led to the actor’s voice being dubbed in postproduction by renowned pro wrestler Dick The Bruiser and another key player in Louise Lasser (Mary Hartman Mary Hartman) was in the midst of a serious cocaine binge during filming which led to erratic behavior and constant difficulties during production because of her own personal problems. But the worst indignity would occur upon the whole thing going over budget which led to the producers actually coming to the set and taking on a supervisory capacity, removing scenes wholesale from the script and having final say over Raimi when it came to production decisions, leading to them having countless arguments with Raimi and his allies, a series of events which reportedly swore Campbell off from ever dealing with big productions ever again and which sadly also led to Raimi himself completely disowning the film after everything was said and done due to having such a miserable experience making it. Yet, despite all these issues, how is the movie itself? Actually not too bad, with an inspired series of comic / action setpieces culminating in an amazing chase sequence where the highways in and around downtown Detroit are torn apart in the best madcap style. The plot centers around Birney’s rather pathetic Vic Ajax, a home security installer and repairman who unbeknownst to him is becoming caught up in a conflict between his bosses, one of whom (Edward R. Pressman) is planning to have his partner killed for trying to sell his business out from under him. To that extent, he hires two “exterminators” (or at least that’s what they advertise themselves as being) to take out his business partner in order to prevent that from happening. As you can imagine, the two hit men are obviously meant to be the showpiece comic characters and that they are as played by Smith and Brion James with Smith’s hulking Faron Crush being the clean up guy while James as Arthur carries out the actual kills with the help of his bizarre “shock machine”, a weapon unlike any other ever seen in the history of cinema. After the initial series of kills by the duo, they start to realize that there is a maddening series of witnesses to their crimes that now must be dealt with, starting with Pressman’s wife (Lasser). Meanwhile, Birney’s creeper Vic is engaging in a restraining order style of courtship with the beautiful girl (Sheree J. Wilson) who lives in the same apartment building as his boss. Fortunately for her, she happens to be dating Campbell’s Renaldo, a guy who could easily steal any girl away from the likes of the main character, but because he’s also an hilariously over the top, self proclaimed “heel” (i.e. asshole) who can’t seem to stop himself from saying the most arrogant, inappropriate things to women, he not only more than handily and unintentionally helps Birney get the girl of his dreams, but also at least partially disqualifies himself in the process all while stiffing his date on the dinner bill and then waltzing over to the bar to pick up another woman so that he can leave with her instead. As time goes on, both Birney and Wilson (an underrated beauty who later went on to a long co starring gig on Walker Texas Ranger) get involved with the madness involving the crazed, cartoonish hit men (who seem to have the endurance ability of animated characters) and their haphazard pursuit of any and all witnesses who may have crossed their path. If anyone takes the MVP award for this cast, it would have to be Brion James (who staked his claim as Leon The Replicant in Blade Runner and then went on to have a long career as a character actor before tragically dying of a heart attack in 1999) who brings an overly nasal voice, childlike personality and a crazed manic energy that is unmatched by the rest of the cast to the role of hit man Arthur Coddish, hilariously stealing the movie every time that he’s onscreen not to mention getting the best throwaway lines and moments. Smith’s Crush by comparison gets to have an extended showdown with Lasser’s housewife that results in Raimi himself taking center stage by expertly staging some scenes that are almost remarkable in their comic ingenuity. Alas, the film wound up being barely released even with Raimi’s Evil Dead pedigree attached to it and even then tanked in most of the theatres that had agreed to show it, only finding its audience later on through late night cable TV airings and the audience interest in Raimi (and Campbell) after the successes of Evil Dead 2 and Army Of Darkness. Raimi even managed to shore up some fairly respectable cameos here, none more directly relevant than Emil Sitka, former collaborator with The Three Stooges who had co starred in several of their films, here playing an eccentric retired Colonel living in the same apartment building where much of the madness takes place. But at the end of the day, this remains Reed Birney’s show and a sad thing that is indeed as you can feel Sheree Wilson’s chemistry with him wilting every second that they are onscreen together even as he rhapsodizes endlessly about how people are supposed to always take care of each other or some such dreck (all while she still looks longingly at Campbell’s impeccable scoundrel) and only the frenetic pacing of the movie itself keeps us from tuning out right along with her. But as far as that pacing goes, it IS fantastic, always reminding us that this is the work of the same genius who created Evil Dead and the insane 20+ minute car chase which closes the movie almost forgives everything despite the overt use of primitive green screen technology but the amount of fist fighting on car hoods, crashes and explosions involved (including the villains running innocent motorists off the highway just for getting in the way) indicate a level of kinetic brilliance which very few can achieve. Granted, we were robbed of another Bruce Campbell starring role here and Raimi himself has withstood any attempts to get him to reconnect with this work (although Campbell was gracious enough to do a commentary), but watching the branching out into a different realm other than horror (and just about pulling it off) is definitely worthy of most people’s attention or at least for fans of Campbell and Raimi…
7/10