Comfort and Joy (1984)
Grade: 53
"Comfort and Joy" is a glacially paced whimsical comedy that doesn't quite make it. Bill Paterson stars as Alan Dickie, an Adult Contemporary disk jockey that is locally famous. Alan's live-in girlfriend, Maddy (Eleanor David), suddenly moves out leaving Alan distraught. His surgeon friend Colin (Patrick Malahide) is there to sympathize, but Alan finds himself fantasizing about Maddy and wistfully inspecting other women.
He sees a pretty woman in a "Mr. Bunny" ice cream truck. She smiles at him, and he follows the truck with his car. He is surprised to see goons wearing masks appear from nowhere and beat the truck with clubs. One of goons spots Alan and gets his autograph.
This incident has a strong impact on Alan. He becomes fascinated by ice cream, and makes an on-the-air offer to arbitrate the ice cream wars between "Mr. Bunny" and rival "Mr. McCool". He is so coy about this that his radio boss thinks he's lost it, sends Alan to a shrink, and takes him off the air. And Alan does seem to have lost, babbling on to everyone about ice cream and Mr. Bunny.
The only people who take Alan seriously are the feuding ice cream vendors. The McCool's are of Italian heritage, which apparently makes them act like mobsters, a stereotype complete with the head speaking Italian and the son translating and talking about family honor. Mr. Bunny has employed an attractive daughter of the McCool's. Worse, the Bunny's control the fish and chips market, that the McCool's want to break into.
Poor Alan is caught in the middle, naively attempting to arbitrate the dispute, and only ends up blamed by both sides and getting his beloved car bashed with clubs. But, eventually, Alan comes up with a solution. He invents a recipe for ice cream fritters and convinces Mr. Bunny and Mr. McCool to market the concoction as a "joint venture", taking a cut for himself as well. Apparently, Alan's boss is pleased as well, since Alan returns to the airwaves to plug his new product on his show as the credits roll.
Although "Comfort and Joy" is certainly watchable, it has its problems. The pace is too slow, and the various characters that are supposed to be humorous are not. The plot resolution is too tidy, as the warring clans band together upon one taste of Alan's recipe. The soundtrack is as tame and lame as Alan's on-air music. But perhaps the biggest mistake is the attempt to present violence and vandalism as something amusing.
http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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