This movie really is pretty funny. Crystal is always funny and Williams, well, what can I say... the guy is funny even if he's not trying to be! Crystal plays a straight-laced lawyer while Williams plays a total psychotic, who really wants to believe he has a son so he'll have a reason to stay partially sane.
This movie's plot may be a bit thin, but who cares because the cast is great. The short version of the plot is that a worried mother recruits two men to find her runaway teenage son. How does she get them to agree to find him? She tells each of the men(obviously not thinking that they may run into each other while searching for the boy) that he is the father. This leads to a silly comic pairing.
There are all kinds of great things in this movie. Crystal and Williams are great together. Mel Gibson makes a cameo-- watch closely because you might not recognize him!! The band Sugar Ray is also in the movie. Cool things like that!
This may not satisfy a hunger for laugh out loud, slap on the knee kind of funny, but it's still funny, with a charming ending.
MUCH funnier than I expected
After looking at the rather....well, dumb cover, and reading the synopsis, I expected it to be a rather medicore movie. Boy was I wrong. I'll tell ya, the script ain't gold, but Billy Crystal and (especially) Robin Williams make this movie quite funny as heck. Everything from Williams' opening lines/scene about how depressing his life is, to his amusing vulnerability, to the way Billy Crystal wittily mocks everybody, makes this movie quite a delight. And notice how I used the actors' names instead of the characters' names. That is because, like I said, it is the talented and hilarious acting that saved this movie from potential mediocracy.
The script isn't anything particularly special, and there is only one somewhat major flaw with it: Williams and Crystal are deceptively sent by a former girlfriend of both of theirs on a search for a boy who she claims to be the son of both of them. But near the end, it is never explained why she does that, instead of....oh I dunno, hiring a detective, or looking for him herself? While this kind of takes away from the believability of the story, the story isn't where the movie is meant to shine so it doesn't end up meaning much.
Williams plays the perfect total loser, and Crystal the witty, successful lawyer, in this movie sprinkled with more than enough hilarious and memorable scenes. If it weren't for a tighter script, it would've gotten five stars. Definatley worth a rental, and most likely a purchase if you're either a Billy Crystal or especially (since he was the focus of the majority of the better jokes) Robin Williams fan.
Best actors but script doesn't do justice.
Overall, I have always enjoyed Robin William and Billy Crystal's performance in many other movies, but I must admit to my surprise that it wasn't making me laughing on the floor as I usually do. The script was boring and the plot was downright disppointing. Didn't like the ending. It was like a stupid wild goose chase for both of them and end up accepting that the mother of the son lied to them. Which is really a bad example for younger audience to see this and thinking it's normal for mothers to lie. I hope someday to see both Robin and Billy to act together in another movie in the near future and hopefully better script than this one.
Billy Crystal plays Mickey, a basketball referee who has to accompany his estranged father's body to France, where the old man requested to be buried with the other members of his D-Day platoon. Unfortunately for Mickey, the airline loses his body. Fortunately for Mickey, this leads him to meet Ellen (Debra Winger), an airline executive who takes personal charge of the case and even joins him at the funeral. A whirlwind Paris romance leads to marriage, but that's when the complications begin... The story of Mickey and Ellen's marriage is recounted by their friends (played by Joe Mantegna, Cynthia Stevenson, Julie Kavner, Richard Masur, John Spencer, and Cathy Moriarty) as they wait for Mickey and Ellen to arrive at a dinner party. And of course these friends have their own stories, which... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Billy Crystal - Debra Winger Director(s): Billy Crystal DVD Release Date: Released the 18 January 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This shaggy-dog fable barely drew fleas when it arrived in the winter of 1986. Now critics refer to it as a winning, offbeat classic. What took 'em so long? Probably the fact that director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) and screenwriter Ron Shelton (Bull Durham) were chasing something very elusive: a cockeyed, scatological look at delayed glory. Robin Williams plays Jack Dundee, a meek bank VP in Taft, California, who daily relives the humiliation of a bobbled pass in the game against Bakersfield. Not content to live out his days as "Butterfingers" Dundee, Jack hits on a plan to "rewrite history" by restaging the Big Game. Taft's now-over-the-hill quarterback, Reno Hightower (Kurt Russell), reluctantly goes along with the harebrained scheme to redeem his buddy. The... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Robin Williams - Kurt Russell Director(s): Roger Spottiswoode DVD Release Date: Released the 02 February 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Anyone who's lived in an apartment will understand the mounting frustration of Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore as they grapple with the upstairs neighbor of their worst nightmares in Duplex, directed by Danny DeVito. Stiller and Barrymore play a young couple who think they've found the home of their dreams when they buy an astonishingly spacious Brooklyn duplex. Unfortunately, the second floor comes with a tenant, a seemingly sweet little old lady (Eileen Essell). Her petty demands and manipulative ways drive Stiller and Barrymore to desperate attempts to oust her--and when she breezily resists their worst efforts, the hapless pair begin to consider more serious (and final) measures. Duplex might be called a comedy of anxiety; it constantly pricks at your expectations of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ben Stiller - Drew Barrymore - Eileen Essell Director(s): Danny DeVito DVD Release Date: Released the 02 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A pampered socialite (Goldie Hawn) is so distraught after the wedding-night death of her husband (Albert Brooks) that she up and joins the Army. She whines, she pouts, she brings the corps down, until, of course, she gets with it. Eileen Brennan received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as the butch Captain Doreen Lewis, Benjamin's nemesis. Funny and winning, the film takes an odd turn when Benjamin is assigned to the international theater and gets involved with a dour Frenchman (Armand Assante). Of course, it's all part of Benjamin's growth as a person, and the part confirmed that Hawn had gone from a go-go girl to a "you go" girl. --Keith SimantonMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Goldie Hawn - Eileen Brennan Director(s): Howard Zieff DVD Release Date: Released the 01 May 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Ron Howard's breakthrough film as a director launched Michael Keaton as a screen comic. In this film, he is teamed with a hangdog Henry Winkler as a pair of night attendants at a city morgue. Thinking entrepreneurially, Keaton (as the flakier half of the team) convinces a reluctant Winkler that they could kill two birds with one stone and use their quiet surroundings to start a call-girl business. The first girl in the stable of these unlikely pimps: Shelley Long, pre-Cheers. Given the rather tasteless subject matter (ever really met a happy hooker?), it's surprisingly good fun, ignited by the chemistry between the nebbish Winkler and the jet-propelled Keaton, who seized this role and used it to shoot him to stardom--and into several years of stinkers. Meanwhile, the film was... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Henry Winkler - Michael Keaton - Shelley Long Director(s): Ron Howard DVD Release Date: Released the 05 June 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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