Start The Revolution Without Me (PG) * Starring Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland Directed by Bud Yorkin A Review by Frankie Paiva
Shining in such classics as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Young Frankenstein, Gene Wilder is easily a big pull for renting a comedy movie. There's just something different (and funny) about his voice, his face, and his physical humor. That's how Start The Revolution Without Me grabbed me off the comedy shelf, and I'm here to help you through not letting that happen to you.
Philippe (Wilder) and Pierre (Sutherland) are rich French gentlemen. They have to make some type of agreement on a treaty and are traveling to France to do just that. When they dock, they do battle with a group of homeless pirates (or something of the sort) that Claude (Wilder again) and Charles (Sutherland again) are a part of. Claude and Philippe were separated at birth, the same with Pierre and Charles. So, naturally, the two get mixed up and are mistaken for the other two.
When Claude is taken to the king's palace and asked by the king's servant the kill the queen, the two have to escape and are sent into a madcap run around the house (?) avoiding a maniac, a nymphomaniac, (?) and the rest of the king's servants. They somehow start a war with the homeless pirates again that Philippe and Pierre are now (unwillingly) a part of, and they go to battle.
I think that I laughed exactly twice in Start The Revolution Without Me. The film obviously has some problems, the main one being that Wilder (and the script) go way over-the-top with the stupid quota on this one. It takes the fact that the twins are mixed up as the film's 100 minute joke. It also doesn't really help seeing what Donald Sutherland looked like when he was younger either. (I actually do feel very sorry for him.) But the worst thing is that the film breaks an alltime rule. Any film with Orson Welles is either good or funny. Horribly broken here as he appears for commentry before the film and as part of the film's extremely strange ending. (That amazingly ends like some film with hair gel and a dog.)
This is a member of the film's that you could see if you enjoy inflicting pain on yourself club (FTYCSIYEIPOYC is what I call it, and I do review so many of them.) So Start The Revolution Without Me gets * star.
The Young-Uns: The film contains some sexual references and the end has lots of gun battle. Also, some young children may be confused by what is going on. Good Age: 7 & Up
A Review by Frankie Paiva The 12 Year-Old Movie Reviewer E-Mail me at SwpStke@aol.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews