Post by StevePulaski on May 15, 2011 18:21:51 GMT -5
Richard and Larry struggle to keep Bernie around in Weekend at Bernie's.
Rating: ★★★
Weekend at Bernie's is easily one of the most underrated and truly funny comedies of the eighties. It has a sort of cult level to it, but nothing respectable like some eighties films. It's unsung, much like License to Drive. It managed to spawn a sequel four years later and sort of has its own dark side equipped with certain levels of humor. It's hard to explain.
Before I get into the plot and the positives, let's talk about one small thing; some points in this film are hard to believe. Some scenes where the boys desperately struggle to pass Bernie off as alive is definitely fake. It is hard to work with a plot where you have to pretend a character is alert and active very smoothly. McCarthy and Silverman do only a fair job as they try to work with the script they were handed trying to make a dead guy seem living.
Sometimes, it is just not believably that guy is alive. When Larry is "playing" Monopoly with the corpse, maybe at a distance Bernie can seem alive and well. But when his wife goes to have sex with him, it is hard to believe Bernie has an active sex life when he is dead. Certain points were not executed as well as they could've been. But it was good and not a total letdown.
The plot: Two time insurance clerks named Richard and Larry (McCarthy and Silverman) find a flaw in the companies' receipts suggesting someone could be stealing money from the company. They report the problem to their boss Bernie Lomax (Kiser) in hopes to acquire a certain reward for their findings.
Bernie says he wants them to come down to his Hampton Island beach house to spend the weekend to celebrate what they did for the company. Richard and Larry don't know that Bernie plans to have them both killed. Bernie, ironically, is then killed by one of his buddies named Paulie who then shoved heroin in his pocket to make it look like an accidental overdose. Upon Richard and Larry's arrival they find the dead Bernie and contemplate what to do with him.
They decide on pretending he is alive so they do not need to spend a weekend answering questions they don't know at the police station. Incredibly self indulgent, but understandable to a degree. Not like they killed him.
The comedy is slapstick, but people do not understand that slapstick can be done well. All you need is a serious situation, done right. Nobody wants to watch a comedy where the characters are having a good time. Like Grown Ups. If you watch a comedy where the characters are trying to have be serious, but nothing but comical things come in their path, then that is funny.
What also helps any slapstick formula are two people that work well together. Most likely, you'd get a serious guy and a silly guy. Andrew McCarthy and Johnathan Silverman are a good duo and sort of remind me of a pre-Chris Farley and David Spade relationship. Not as funny, but a little reminiscent.
Weekend at Bernie's is by no means an awful film. There are certainly worse comedies that don't even make me smile and are more like watching a bad home movie. The eighties ruled in the comedy genre. While Weekend at Bernie's is still waiting to have a blowup in popularity, it is sort of full of life in its own right.
Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Johnathan Silverman, and Terry Kiser. Directed by: Ted Kotcheff.