8 HEADS IN A DUFFEL BAG
A film review by Perry Mercer
Copyright 1997 Perry Mercer
EIGHT HEADS IN A DUFFEL BAG *1/2 starring: Joe Pesci, Andy Comeau, Kristy Swanson, David Spade, George Hamilton, Dyan Cannon directed by: Tom Schulman
If the filmmakers thought that the film's title "EIGHT HEADS IN A DUFFLE BAG" was a catchy and cute one, then give them points for being distinctive. However, if you want to reward them for the premise and value of this same movie, give them 3-D points: distasteful, decadent, and dumb. Instead of calling this awful film EIGHT HEADS IN A DUFFLE BAG, how about renaming it appropriately "EIGHT BRAINLESS HEADS WHO WROTE A MOVIE SCRIPT THAT NEEDS TO BE BURIED IN A BARF BAG". This newest offbeat flick tries its best to be dark and comedic but ends up daub and corruptibly contrived. Just as one would expect to see sunshine when the sun rises, Joe Pesci yet again plays his redundant role as a feisty New York mob hitman out to deliver a bag of "cut up craniums" of former wiseguys to Los Angeles. When the hacked-up-hitmen-heads are taken by mistake from an unknowing medical student (newcomer Andy Comeau), Pesci's frustrated hitman character Tommy Spinelli must follow him to Mexico and retrieve that decomposed duffle bag. Of course we follow our peculiar protagonists to Mexico where our poor med student Charlie must meet and greet the parents of his girlfriend Laurie (Kristy Swanson). As if the movie characters and situations are not preposterous enough, Kristy's mother is an alcoholic who jumps off the wagon after inadvertently seeing the heads in Charlie's duffle bag. And her father (George Hamilton) is an overbearing baffoon. And how convenient that the film ships all this farce-driven excitement to Mexico where we can see yet another barrage of Mexican stereotypes amongst the zaniness of these American airheads. EIGHT HEADS IN A DUFFLE BAG wants to be exceedingly irreverent and naughty with its forced taboo comedy of hitmen, high jinx, and haplessness. Unfortunately, all this film does is to remind us how irascible one can get watching all this moronic mayhem. Writer-director Tom Schulman has done amusing work before with funny material such as his previous film "WHAT ABOUT BOB?". However, in EIGHT HEADS IN A DUFFLE BAG, he overdoes his outrageousness in this film with lame and insipid results. "HEADS" is Schulman's directing debut I must point out. Let's hope that Schulman has better luck in the future trying to overcome this atrocity. If you're going to do a dark comedy about body parts and kooky characters, make sure your premise is fresh and unpredictable. Having Pesci do his "gangster" goon bit for the umteenth time in the movies not to mention featuring that smug-looking, smartalecky David Spade with his Saturday Night Live sarcasm routine does not instill any confidence in a film that's supposed to be unsuspecting and viciously vibrant. All the ones responsible for this mockery of a movie need to bury their heads in the sand, never mind in a duffle bag!
Frank rates this film: * 1/2 stars -- E-mail: qnfr98a@prodigy.com Website with more review: http://www.vgt.com/atmovies.html
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