Jim Belushi and John Ritter team up in a screwball comedy about the CIA's top agent enlisting a mild-mannered insurance salesman in order to bring a glass of water of extra-terrestrials to save the world. With a plot like that, what could go wrong? Well...millions of things.
But none of those things happen here. This is buddy-cop comedy perfection.
Sometimes movies need to be revisited to know that film-goers blew it when the film was in theaters. Sometimes we talk about those films and their reputation as crummy-movies. We call those episodes, "Bad Movies Debunked" and this is one such movie.
It's got your classic motifs that could be found in a bevy of crummy stinkers - aliens, trannies, shootouts, the Russians, Jim Belushi, John Ritter, you know...the usual. HOWEVER, something epic happened while making this film and people without major talent put it all together and delivered. Jim is hilarious with his dead-pan straight man and top CIA agent and Ritter's transformation from bumbling joe-schmo to tough-in-training is too much fun.
The writing is crisp, the jokes are delivered like a piping hot pizza, the chemistry of the buddies is top notch and it just gets sillier and sillier. This is a movie for all lovers of goofballery.
Over the top action:
Cheesy effects:
Horrendous acting:
Laugh-out-loud-ability:
Ridiculous stunts:
Gratuitous nudity:
Memorable one-liners:
Riffability:
Good Movie Quality:
Bad Movie Quality:
Dennis Feldman, son of famed filmmaker Phil Feldman (The Wild Bunch) spent most of his career as a script doctor. He has, however, handful of turnkey screenplays which made it to screen, including Species and The Golden Child. After the moderate success of Just One of the Guys, he was given the helm of his only directorial effort to date, Real Men.
The troubles of this film would most likely prevent Feldman from returning to director’s chair, smothering what may have been a budding auteur. Oddly the troubles of the film were more the troubles of the studio, United Artists. The company was still in dire straits after the full flop of Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. It would appear the company was unable or unwilling to give this film a full release so it only saw a minimal screen release and returned less than $1 million.
When I was somewhere in between six and eight years old this movie was what I thought to be the 'Total Package'. I thought this shit had it all. Tragically the tape was lost and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the film in over 30 years. I think my mom may have destroyed our original copy due to the bondage scene, possibly too much for the grade-schoolers – Sharky’s Machine though, that one was okay.
The film stars screen giant and greatly missed comedy almost legend John Ritter. He is teamed with then rising brother of John, James Belushi. This thing not seeing a wide release may have stifled Ritter’s then exploding silver screen career. We’ve all seen Three’s Company and we know who was bringing laughs (Don Knotts mostly).
KAEOF: Favorite villain/villain squad, and favorite bad joke.