The Out-of-Towners Review
by DeWyNGaLe (dewyngale AT aol DOT com)April 11th, 1999
THE OUT OF TOWNERS by DeWyNGaLe Rating: B-
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Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin are two of today's biggest names in comedy. Both of them are well-known for movies such as The First Wive's Club (Hawn), Shampoo (Hawn), Father of the Bride (Martin), and The Jerk (Martin). Mix these two comics together and what do you get? The Out of Towners. The Out of Towners is a remake of the 1970 classic starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis. With such a great cast this time around, how could it fail? Well, I was worried it was, but I was not let down.
Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin are Nancy and Henry Clark, a middle aged couple from Ohio. Right now, they are experiencing hard times because their son (Oliver Hudson) just went off to college. Their daughter is also away, so they are living by themselves now. They look at it in two ways. 1. They have more time to themselves. 2. They will be lonely without their kids. Another problem the two are facing is one that Henry is keeping from Nancy- that he has been fired. He most go to an interview for a job in New York City, and when Nancy tags along unexpectedly, the two are off for an adventurous, wild ride through the vast place they call New York City.
Things get off to a bad start when their bags turn up lost after arriving in New York City. What occurs from here is incident after incident that puts the two into more and more trouble. They have no money, no bags, and the police are even after them. Whenever they try to get themselves out of trouble, they just get burrowed into it more and more and more.
Goldie Hawn is the best part of the film. Her dialogue is absolutely hysterical. She whines a lot, which makes for a lot of laughs. I always enjoy Goldie Hawn. She has a way of making me laugh, just when I look at her. As more problems arise for Martin's character, he starts to go, well, crazy. He does make for some funny sequences when he becomes very stressed out, but some of the comedy that comes from Martin is not funny, but obnoxious. A scene in which Martin takes a hallucinogenic is very well done and funny. John Cleese as Mr. Mersault is very funny and gives some unexpected laughs. For the most part, The Out of Towners humor is very well used. In some parts of the film, it starts to use the slapstick comedy method, which did not work for the type of movie this was. Some of the slapstick did work though.
One thing that I really didn't like about The Out of Towners that it wasn't much different from anything else. The events that take place are highly predictable and overused in movies such as this one. It was pretty forgettable, and only after one week of seeing it, I am having a very hard time writing a review for it. This movie is not the type of movie teens would like. They are better off seeing movies such as She's All That or 10 Things I Hate About You. The movie won't really appeal to older audiences either, considering the amount of slapstick comedy involved. It won't even appeal to little kids because of some of the more mature themes, violence and stealing, will not be appropriate for them. So who does this movie appeal to? The answer is: Pretty much no one.
The Bottom Line- The Out of Towners shouldn't be in town for long.
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