Le palace en folie

I was 14 years old when "Bachelor Party" was released...therefore I was too young to see it in a theatre as it was rated "R," and of course Mom and Dad weren't going to take me to see such a film. About a year after that it happened to come on HBO one night while my parents were out for the evening, so I excitedly sat down to watch this forbidden fruit. I laughed my ass off for the entire movie, of course, and the experience was heightened by the knowledge that if Mom and Dad came home before the movie was over and caught me watching it, they would've kicked my butt. Fortunately the film ended before they returned, so I got away with my little indiscretion. That's my main "Bachelor Party" memory and why the film remains so special to me all these years later.

Seeing it again after a quarter of a century (! has it been that long?) I was confronted with a blast of nostalgia. "Bachelor Party" is now a true time capsule of the '80s and as soon as it started I was transported back to my junior high days. Hard to believe that Tom Hanks -- yes, THE Tom Hanks -- got his start in goofball comedies like this, "Volunteers" and the sit-com "Bosom Buddies" before becoming an award winning serious actor. Hanks is likable in just about anything, and "Bachelor Party" is no exception. His character, a goofy slacker named Rick who drives a school bus for a living, has somehow lucked into marrying the gorgeous Tawny Kitaen (who would become famous a few years later for her turn in several Whitesnake videos, then infamous after that for her drug and alcohol fueled activities), to the horror of her rich parents. Rick's party-animal friends (including Adrian Zmed of "Grease 2" and "T.J. Hooker" fame) want to send Rick off into married life with the bachelor bash to end all bashes, and so the characters descend on an upscale hotel suite with all the class of a horde of Vikings on the attack. The party has all the sleazy trimmings you'd expect (drugs, hookers, booze, porn, strippers, etc.) plus a few hilarious asides such as a pimp who "looks like Gandhi" and a well endowed male stripper who goes by the stage name "Nick the Dick." Rick's fiancé, afraid that he will be unfaithful to him during said party, decides to crash the proceedings with her friends, leading to predictable '80s raunch-comedy chaos. (A naked guy hung out of the hotel window! A Marilyn Monroe lookalike stripper who turns out to be a guy in drag! A cocaine-snorting donkey that dies of an OD!) I laughed just as hard as I did when I was a teenybopper! This movie still holds up as one of the best low brow comedies of the 80s, if not of all time. Rent this one and give your inner 14 year old the time of his life!

Bachelor Party (1984)

** (out of 4)

A man (Tom Hanks) announces to his buddies that he's going to get married in a week so obviously they decide to throw him a bachelor party (as well as try to talk him out of it). This is yet another post NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE flick where it's dumb, obnoxious, stupid and it doesn't care. As you'd expect, the R-rating is certainly reached for and achieved through a variety of profane language, silly sexual situations and of course plenty of nudity. The movie gets off to a good start but I thought it slowly got out of control with some of the side plots and in the end I really didn't find it as funny as many do. It's clear many consider this a classic of 80s comedies but I personally wouldn't go that far. I think the biggest problem I had with the film were the characters. I can't say I enjoyed any of them nor did I find any of them funny. Sure, there are a few laughs here and there but for the most part I was sitting there rather bored and just waiting for the film to end. Which is pretty much another problem since this thing clocks in at nearly 110-minutes, which is way too long. I think the main reason to tune into this thing would be for the young Hanks who you'd never tell by watching this that he would end up winning two Oscars. I guess the same thing could be said for Sean Penn in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH but then again you could strike this up as their talent for being able to play characters like these. I think Hanks gets to show off some of his comic timing and he certainly has a few funny bits playing the smart jerk. I thought some of the best moments happened early on when he's going after his future father-in-law who hates him. The rest of the cast were pretty bland to me but then again I think most of this has to do with the screenplay and not their performances. The film is very hit and miss in terms of laughs but to me most of them were misses. When the bachelor party finally happens it too is somewhat of a letdown as it really doesn't appear to be very fun.

This is one of those typical silly early '80's comedies, that features lots of immature teenage type of lame humor and nudity and sex jokes.

No, this by no means is a great movie and it also is hardly the best the genre has to offer but it's a movie that simply serves its purpose and brings some good entertainment.

The movie features dozens of silly and over-the-top characters, who are the main reason why this movie is such a maintaining and silly entertaining one to watch. It features Tom Hanks in an early comical movie role and it actually is sort of a shame he doesn't do movies like this anymore, since he certainly was very talented at it. Not that I mind the movies that he does now days of course but it at the same time is also a waste of his comical talent.

The movie also tries to feature some more serious elements, that concentrated on what it means to be married. Not that this works out horrible for the movie but it of course is also distracting a bit from what the movie is really truly about; simple immature comedy. Further more there is very little story actually and it simply features on the events during and around a bachelor party.

The movie is so silly, simplistic and immature that you just can't help being entertained by it all. No matter how bad and cheesy it all gets, you can't help laughing at this movie. Some comical moments are just plain great.

A real enjoyable silly '80's comedy, starring a young Tom Hanks.

7/10

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Bachelor Party has few redeeming features, but it does have one big one: it's funny. Tom Hanks is about to get married, and his friends throw him one big bachelor party. Naked women, large amounts of drinking and a donkey getting high all follow.

Of course, someone wants to ruin the fun, in the form of Hank's bride-to-be father. Naturally, all of his plans to ruin the party are foiled by the motley crew.

Most of the gags in Bachelor Party are tasteless, but that's half of the fun. Not really recommended to devout Christians, but those with open minds will either find this film infectiously silly, or just stupid. It's a nice reminder of what film makers could get away with in the 80's, though. American Pie, it's nearest competitor, is too glossy and slick to be a proper Hollywood soft porn flick. It also has too much of a heart. Bachelor Party just piles on the dirtiness, and throws in a moral at the end, which is the way all 'Porky's' copies should be made (although Party is more fun than Porkys.)

(Comedy, 1984)

"Bachelor Party" is very much like other films of its genre except that it is one of Tom Hanks' very early efforts and, as a result, is more fondly remembered than it probably would be without Hanks.

Yes, before Hanks turned into Forrest Gump and an Oscar-winning heavyweight actor, he desperately starred in a 1984 teen sex comedy not unlike "Porky's," "The Last American Virgin" or "American Pie." "Splash" had been a success by now so the marketers could rely upon his newly-created status to promote "Bachelor Party," and it paid off -- this movie was an unexpected hit when it came out (albeit a small one).

Tom Hanks is a fine actor but I have to say that he had a certain charm about his acting that made many mediocre '80s comedies -- including "Turner and Hooch," "The 'burbs" and of course "Bachelor Party" -- immensely likable despite their flaws.

Yes, this is a crude, lewd, rude movie but it has its fair share of embarrassing moments, laugh-out-loud segments and cheesy (but fun) segments. Good entertainment for a Friday or Saturday night, and a good glimpse at a much younger, thinner, more comedic (and slapstick) Tom Hanks before he got all weepy-eyed and serious on us.