Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | September 14, 2004 | | Summary | Hilarious, but with excessive excess | Content
 | Nolte's character chooses to end his life by drowning himself in a rich man's pool. The rich man, Richard Dreyfus, saves him from drowning in the pool, and Nolte saves Dreyfus's family from drowning in aimless decadence and excess. Nolte is gruff and likeable; Bette Midler, as Dreyfus's wife, is good-hearted but demanding and confused; Dreyfus is successful and lost; the kids are confused. Everyone helps everyone, and ends up better off.
My only complaint is that, in an attempt to show how decadent and lost Dreyfus is at the beginning of the film, his affair with the maid is shown to us in unnecessary detail. Perhaps this sounds prudish, but the point could have been made in a subtler, more artistic way. Ah, well, nothing is perfect. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 01, 2003 | | Summary | A Must See Comedy | Content
| It has been some time since I saw this flick, but it is a must see for anyone who has not seen it. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 20, 2003 | | Summary | One of the best comedies ever made | Content
| Despondent over the loss of his dog, Jerry the bum is rescued from an attempted suicide in the swimming pool of a wealthy Beverly Hills businessman, Dave Whitman, and subsequently teaches Whitman to eat garbage, cures the neurotic dog, seduces Whiteman???s ungreencarded maid, new-aged-gurued wife, and anorexic daughter, gives the gay son permission to come out of the closet, destroys Whitman???s New Year party, teaches the whole family to walk on hot coals and ruins the garden by urinating on the flowers. All of this and a good deal more, produces continuous laughter. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 12, 2002 | | Summary | Still great | Content
| After more than 15 years, this comedy still elicits huge laughs and the primary reason for that is it's sharp. It bites. No comedy can last through the years without some noticeable degree of sharp social irreverence built into it. It just can't be done. And this comedy is nothing if not irreverent. Based on the '30s French farce Boudu Saved from Drowning, the American director Paul Mazursky does a terrific job of fusing stinging satire with mock pathos as Nick Nolte's street bum Jerry, having lost the last thing important to him--his dog--decides to end it once and for all. Stumbling into the upper crustean Beverly Hills, he manages to locate a swimming pool at whose bottom he decides to meet his maker. The pool, as it happens, belongs to Richard Dreyfuss' Dave Whiteman, a very wealthy wire hanger mogul, and his daffy wife played by Bette Midler. Dave's maid, the always fetching Elizabeth Pena, is playing hanky-panky with Dave, yet Dave is not without a heart. He catches sight of Jerry right after his plunge and rescues him, and the rest, as they say, is hysterical. Everybody, as it happens, winds up loving Jerry--Dave's wife, Dave's maid, Dave's dog, Dave's son, and Dave's daughter. And even Dave himself. What 'love' means here depends on who is doing the loving. Dave's neighbor is Little Richard who can't help but toss in a couple of his songs here and there, which adds to the romp that is this film. Jerry manages to teach just about everybody a thing or two about life--even the dog learns how to eat regular dog food from him. These days, as the rich get slightly--but not a lot--less rich, and the poor definitely get poorer, it's refreshing to see a comedy that irreverently laces into both. This really refers to class under attack here, and that word has more than one meaning. Social class, what we think of as class (as in 'a class act'), and what we learn from each other (it's Jerry who leads the class--he's the real teacher here) all get the treatment. A great satire well worth watching, if not owning. Don't miss. |
| Rating | | | Date | September 17, 2002 | | Summary | For some reason I really like this film! | Content
| The story of a tramp who finds his way into the household of a rich family, and gradually changes their lives. I must admit, I often see homeless people and wonder what they would look like if given a new haircut, a bath, and a set of clothes, and cinema has given us some good transformation scenes of this type over the years. Where Nick Nolte excels is that his greying (real) beard just looks so scuzzy (he lived on the streets for a efew weeks before starting filming) yet once clean-shaven with just a moustache he looks really good. He is helped by a very fit body, with no sores or bruises, which is perhaps not so realistic. Nolte's performance in the role vindicates Paul Mazursky's decision to cast him in the role, something studio bosses were cynical about in view of his trouble with alcoholism. Similar reservations were voiced about co-stars Richard Dreyfuss and Bette Midler, yet all three turn in really good and funny performances. There is a great guest appearance from Little Richard, who also performs a couple of numbers in the film. This seems dated now, but not in a bad way. The hair salon scene and the son's new romantic pop group remind us of the worst excesses of 1980s style, while the remainder of the film reminds us of what we were really like in those days, with our over-reliance on fads (the guru, the dog psychologist, the radio psychologist) and neglect of important issues like homelessness and our own children. Above all, this is an enjoyable, thought-provoking comedy. If you can find it, I would also recommend the book by Ian Marter. |
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