The Out-of-Towners (1999) Reviewed by Eugene Novikov http://www.ultimate-movie.com/outoftowners.html Member: Online Film Critics Society
** out of four
Starring Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, John Cleese. Rated PG-13.
A sitcom is neatly defined as a situation comedy, which means that we laugh at the situations that the characters get themselves into and, perhaps, how they get themselves out of the situation, but that is all. The Out-of-Towners, then, is nothing more than a sitcom. This is actually a remake of a 1970 Neil Simon comedy, and that film, starring Jack Lemmon was appropriate and entertaining (and even appropriately entertaining). Unfortunately director Sam Weisman and screenwriter Marc Lawrence decide to go for less laughs and more sex in their inadvisable retread. Thankfully The Out-of-Towners stars two people who are very capable of rising above their screenplays, those being Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. They play a husband and wife who come to New York from Ohio for said husband's job interview and have everything go wrong that possibly can. Let's see... their plane gets diverted, they get on the wrong train, their luxury sedan starts speaking French, they nearly fall off a hotel marquee (don't stop, just keep reading), their credit card is maxed out... I won't ruin the experience for you by mentioning all of the many other things that happen to this poor couple, but you get the idea.
Not only that, but The Out-of Towners also decides, for motives that remain unclear to me to this point, to be a study of a marriage in crisis (something the original wasn't). That certainly provides for more than a few moments of "Aaaaaaw" sweetness but it intercuts more moments of "Eeeeew" schmaltz. Either way, whether its filmmakers realize this or not, The Out-of-Towners was written directly for the small screen. The screenplay screams sitcom because it gets its characters into a compromising situation (such as being the unwitting participants of a Sexaholics meeting) and simply says "Funny, no?" In a half- hour tv show this is ok. From a movie we expect more. Last year the Farrelly brothers surprised us all by always taking their gags a step further than we would expect. Doing that in The Out-of-Towners would have made the film a gem.
I would be lying if I said that I did not find at least some of the film amusing; in fact I thought that some moments were indeed quite funny. When we see the hotel manager dancing in drag, even though it's not quite as "Omigod!" shocking in these '90s, we laugh, mostly thanks to John Cleese whom we will get to in just a moment. Likewise the scene where Hawn's character gets the bright idea to seduce a single traveler in order to get into his hotel room and have dinner is damn near hysterical. But there are many more moments that feel hopelessly contrived, like the aforementioned scene in which our ill-fated couple is forced to escape from a hotel by climbing down the hotel marquee. Hello? We are in the middle of New York and two weirdos are hanging 100 feet up in the air making a hotel sign hang lopsided. No one screams? No one points getting the attention of hotel employees? And anyway, what idiot would climb down a hotel sign when he or she wants to get away without attracting attention in the first place?
Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn are both experienced comedians, and it is well within the bounds of their abilities to take these things and make them funny. For many of them they do just that. But there is only so far two actors, no matter how good, can take a screenplay that is nearly devoid of creativity. This rule, of course, excludes performers as divinely good as, say, John Cleese who literally saves this movie from oblivion. As the hotel manager with weird tendencies he is a squealing delight, the one highlight in a dull production.
Rent the original Out-of-Towners instead. Trust me on this. The remake, star- studded as it may be, is glaringly sub-par, a reminder that nothing but John Cleese can rescue from embarassment a movie with a screenplay this pathetic.
©1999 Eugene Novikov‰
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