Weekend At Bernie's Chad'z rating: **1/2 (out of 4 = OK) 1989, PG, 101 minutes [1 hour, 41 minutes] [comedy] starring: Jonathan Silverman (Richard), Andrew McCarthy (Larry), Catherine Mary Stewart (Gwen), Terry Kiser (Bernie), written by Robert Klame, produced by Victor Drai, directed by Ted Kotcheff.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the "live action cartoon" comedy doesn't work. Now, "Weekend At Bernie's" is not that one hundredth film, it's more like 99 1/2. The film's premise is jokes about a dead body, which makes for a few good gags, but not that many.
Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy star as Richard and Larry, a pair of 20-something buds working as data processors at the generic huge insurance corporation in New York City. Right from the get-go the paldom is interesting with Richard as the uptight workaholic while Larry is the obnoxious slacker. The chemistry between the two is the standard "odd couple" formula, and even though this is obvious it didn't bother me.
Somehow the two stumble upon a scam to defraud the company. When they approach their boss, Bernie Lomax (Kiser), he is so appreciative and happy he invites them to stay at his vacation house in the Hamptons for the upcoming Labor Day weekend. However, it turns out Bernie was defrauding his own company and there is a cartoony mob involvement, and you can pretty much take it from there.
And so the two head out to Bernie's vacation mansion only to find their host dead of what they believe to be a suicide via drug overdose. Bernie was killed because he was cheating with his fellow mobster's girlfriend. The problem is the film is a too slowly paced and this subplot starts to detract from the comedy. From here on we get a comedy about trying to make people believe Bernie's alive. It's the hyperactivity between Silverman and McCarthy that keeps the film from becoming a disaster of dumb sight gags.
The film does come back to the mob subplot as the two find themselves running all over the place because they think the killer is after them. Even though this is stupidity, McCarthy and Silverman are quite funny because of their constant bickering and zany antics. The funniest scene occurs when they try to get off the island via speedboat and Bernie's body ends up being dragged and hits a dozen bouies. I was laughing hard at the time, but thinking about it now, I don't understand what was so funny about it. The ending is a cliche but it doesn't become overly annoying, which is how the film acts as a whole.
I'm glad "Weekend At Bernie's" didn't ask us to take it seriously, but it didn't exploit that notion enough.
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