Jimmy the Kid

I watched this movie earlier today. It was fun, yet unspectacular. Gary Coleman, I thought, was great in his role as Jimmy. I don't have any negatives to say about it.

Prior to watching it, I watched The Hot Rock (1972) and Bank Shot (1974), both of which were far better in quality. That's to be expected tho, when you have Redford and Scott starring in the earlier films.

This was my first review. I'm doing so mainly in response to breesman, who was inquiring about a song in the movie. The version that I watched, DID show in the credits who sang it. So ..

I'm Havin' Fun was performed by Jackie English. Unfortunately, I couldn't find audio or video of the song, otherwise I would have shared that as well.

I love this movie, but my not giving it perfect stars is that it doesn't show who sings "I'm Having Fun" in the ending credits. I have been trying to find this out for many years since I first saw the movie.

Let's be honest. This movie is ridiculous. Everything about it is preposterous. But nonetheless it's a lot of fun.

The plot is fairly simply. A group of bumbling petty thieves decide to try for a bigger score - kidnapping! So they scope out Jimmy Lovejoy, the overly-mature son of a father and wife singing duo. Did I mention that his parents sing country music? What??? In spite of being kidnapped Jimmy grows close to his kidnappers. And they like him too. He eventually ends up helping them, while at the same time trying to steer them down a different career path.

Throw in Pat Morita as the blind chauffeur, Avery Schreiber as a crazy psychiatrist and Ruth Gordon's line about "wet panties" and you have a fairly memorable forgotten film.

Silly as it may be, I found it much more entertaining than it probably should have been. We can chalk that up to a pretty stellar cast. Why none of Gary Coleman's movies are on DVD I'll never know. If this ever comes out, I'll line up to buy it. Until then, I'll stick with the DVD-r I copied from my old pre-recorded VHS tape.

Watch it! You won't be disappointed!

If you still flip channels searching for old re-runs of Different Strokes (I am pretty sure that Different was spelled different, like diff'nt or something catchy like that), then this is the movie for you. Gary Coleman was the only good thing about Different Strokes (sorry Adalaide and the Gooch)and he is the only good thing about this movie (sorry Pat Morita). Although this is a really bad movie, I have fond memories of it, just like Coleman's television show. I am sure this would still be enjoyable for a young crowd.

When I was about 10 years old, Jimmy The Kid was on HBO just about every day. I must've watched this movie a good 30 times during the summer of 1984. It was pretty lame, but there was just something about it that kept drawing me in.