“If I didn’t have puke-breath, I’d kiss you”
One thing I always respected about the Abbott & Costello movies, even as a dumb kid, was that they really want to entertain us. They’re like mini-music hall variety shows, with the titular pair doing comedy skits, serious actors pontificating in a romantic-drama subplot, and the Andrew Sisters popping in and out occasionally to do a few musical numbers. Forty years later, WWII was over, and movies weren’t quite so desperate to entertain us anymore. However, the bumbling comedy duo genre was alive and well, with films like Strange Brew and The Blues Brothers being blueprints for terrible modern incarnations of Abbott & Costello.
I guess I should really credit Laurel & Hardy too, but I’m just more of an Abbott & Costello person. Odd really, as I believe we have Bud Abbott to blame for inventing rap, in Buck Privates (1941).
I must confess, I couldn’t have known less about Strange Brew before sitting down to watch it if I’d tried. All I knew beforehand was that it was an early Rick Moranis comedy about two drunk Canadians. To be honest, that’s pretty much the film as a whole. As with most concept-based comedy features, Strange Brew suffers from “The Three Men and a Baby Problem”, which I’ve discussed briefly before. Basically, after the first act, which would be the entire point for the movie existing, the writer has nothing to do. Cue crime caper! Writers Moranis and Dave Thomas sort-of solve this problem by weaving the drama plot into the mix early on, which helps avoid the usual abrupt shift in story and tone.
It’s always a pleasure seeing Moranis in stuff, so I didn’t need much of an excuse to watch Strange Brew. Ah the 90s, a decade so bad for movies that he and Michael J Fox simply lost the will to continue acting, and Raul Julia lost the will to live. Of course, personal tragedy, Parkinson’s disease, and cancer may have also been contributing factors, but we all know the truth.
While I only know Thomas from the sitcoms Grace Under Fire and Arrested Development (“Mr F!”), he’s always fun to watch, especially with those adorably-cherubic features of his. He reminds me of a young Robert Pollard here.
Max von Sydow, who, like Peter Cushing, always knew to be the best thing in a bad movie, does a fine job playing Stock Evil Businessman, although he doesn’t have anything particularly memorable to do. I get the feeling he was being very patient on set. Like a lot. But he was forever a consummate professional who just wanted to work, so I’m guessing he wasn’t a dick about it. I’d miss him more if it weren’t for him being in most of the films in my movie collection. His prolific career has got my grief covered.
While no other names in the credits will be familiar, their faces will. Strange Brew is chock-full of soon-to-be character actors, assumedly making their first onscreen appearances here. You’ll spend much of the runtime exclaiming: “Hey, where do I know him/her from?!”.
Sadly, I struggled with this good-natured film, with a major crisis point coming at the halfway point. I’m glad I didn’t give up though, as things actually do pick up in the second half. I think it helps once Moranis and Thomas start interacting with people more, rather than just wandering about muttering to each other. I initially thought the film was going to be super-low budget and uniquely subversive, but, once the professional-looking titles started at the 8 minute mark, my heart sank and I realised things might get terribly average. I guess they do, but, thanks to scenes like Moranis showing a cop his driver’s license underwater, the lawyer who beats up journalists, and the flying dog-skunk, I managed to make it to the end.
It’s interesting to note that, even though it was released the same year, Strange Brew references Return of the Jedi quite significantly. It must have had a fast production turnaround. Remember those days? You know, when movies didn’t sit in “development hell” for years until being abandoned.
If it weren’t for the interminably long scenes centring on the crime caper subplot (or uberplot, I’m not sure), I might give this film a second go, but I have my doubts. It’s certainly worth watching as a proto-Wayne’s World, but Mike Myers and Dana Carney did it much better a decade later.
Do stay in touch, darlings, eh.
Toodles!
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