L'invité

I remember that we had this movie on VHS and that I really liked watching it when I was younger. I remember it being very entertaining at the time.

Sinbad stars as a con artist who is trying to hide from some mobsters. In an airport he gets mistakenly befriended by a geek lawyer who thinks he's a long lost childhood friend. He becomes a house guest and makes himself comfortable in the lawyer's home and really gets to know his family and neighbors.

This movie is very funny and well suited to watch with your family, I know I loved to watch it back then.

This movie surprisingly works and is very funny and enjoyable and it's also, what I think to be the litmus test of a good movie, always good for repeated viewing without losing its charm. I pass by the film on cable and find myself watching it again and still laughing. I know this seems hard to believe especially since the story is ridiculous and the script is pretty banal. I've come to the conclusion that it's the genuine talent of Sinbad, an exceedingly funny man who unfortunately seems to have disappeared from show business as of late. Phil Hartman adds a great deal to the film with his always impeccable delivery but I can't help but think of his horrible tragedy and kind of fall out of the movie's whimsy at times.

I always liked this movie. It manages to rise above most Hollywood comedies that are inevitably annoying and dispensable. This movie is fun and has great acting which makes up for the fact that it is, by nature, just a screwball comedy. It's a total guilty pleasure but I say go for it.

Houseguest.

One of Sinbad's funniest movies and Phil Hartman's funniest movies. Sinbad plays a 35-year old, never want go get a job, con man, who is in to the mob for $50,000 dollars. After trying to escape from the con man, he impersonates a dentist and that's when the fun begins.

Right off the back, Sinbad brings the laughs. All of of lines about the great white shark biting his friends head off and the GFH off of his suit jacket.

This is a wonderful movie and I would recommend it to anyone, because Sinbad is a comedian that doesn't need profanity to be funny.

Funny 10/10!

Kevin (Sinbad) is a poor single man living in Pittsburgh, with his hamster, in a small apartment. An orphan, Kevin once bragged to his grade school classmates that, one day, he would be "very wealthy". Trouble is, none of his get-rich-quick schemes have panned out and Kevin is in debt to the local mobsters. When they come to collect, Keving speeds off to the airport to catch a flight. However, with the mob on his heels, Kevin overhears an even better opportunity for him to lay low for awhile, at the airport terminal. It seems that Gary (Phil Hartman)and his children are waiting for an old camp friend that Gary has not seen for 20 years. Kevin seizes the moment and declares himself to be Dr. Derek Bond, a dentist, to Gary and the kids. Gary is delighted to see him and takes him home. Once there, in heavenly suburbia, Kevin finds out he is supposed to make a speech at the local elementary school, on career day. Okay. Kevin also learns he is reputed to be a strict vegetarian. Horrors. But, as the family showers him with gifts and parties, Kevin wonders, as do we all, how soon will they learn the truth about his identity? This is a great film, very funny and very spirit-lifting. Sinbad's Kevin is a such a lovable character, despite his scheming, that everyone is hoping for a happy ending. Hartman, likewise, is dead-pan funny in his role as a much put-upon lawyer with a family that looks perfect but which, in reality, has some problems to overcome. The setting is lovely, the costumes are nice, and the look of the film is quite wonderful, too. Do you want to cheer up yourself and your family in a big fashion? This is the film for you, as to watch it is to love it and laugh it up till the clouds overhead are long gone.

I thought for sure I was going to run kicking and screaming from my television... a film with Sinbad? Unwatchable! But this gem proved me wrong, as I not only watched it but loved almost every second of it (and Sinbad is always on the screen, so surely it must be his doing!).

The story is a common Hollywood theme: a guy (Sinbad) passes himself off on a group or family as someone he's not: in this case, a childhood friend of a father (Phil Hartman). A little variety exists in how to play this out, but the same old stuff happens: stranger teaches family a lesson and learns one himself along the way.

What made this film great was the cast. Sinbad was surprisingly insightful and was able to make even average activities seem far-fetched and outrageous. Phil Hartman had a relatively minor role and didn't really get to provide us with a full performance, but his physical facial comedy of biting into a piece of turkey was extremely amusing (facial comedy plays a large part in this film, later coming back when a wine taster is testing a glass).

Jeffrey Jones has too small a part (this man is so under-rated in Hollywood), but does well with what he's been given. And most of all I think Kim Murphy's career should have ignited from this film, but I guess producers didn't watch it. Murphy is obviously beautiful (which seems to be enough to make it in Hollywood), but more so she played her Gothic character perfectly. I was amused with her delivery of the lines concerning Edgar Allan Poe's last meal, her Smiths t-shirt (perfect choice) and the really wacky line about evil rats. The writers did their homework when writing in Murphy's character and she repaid them in spades. (Can I use the word "spades" when talking about a Sinbad movie?) The soundtrack was amusing. Best feature: the fact that some scenes were so obviously McDonald's commercials, with one really extended scene including a McDonald's theme song. Heck, after that moment I would have cut off my own leg for a double quarter pounder with cheese.

I love this movie, and would not be against displaying it proudly on my movie shelf for all my relatives, friends and guests to see. I do not know why this film has gone underground and has been long forgotten my many people, but it shouldn't have been. This is comedy gold, people.