Amos & Andrew

Clumsily written, the quasi-buddy comedy of mistaken identity stars Samuel L. Jackson as a racist writer on a posh Massachusetts island who is mistaken for being a burglar. After dodging a shower of police gunfire at his house everyone finds out that he is the person living there. Rather than face internal affairs, the cops let a car thief (Nicholas Cage) out of jail to go in the home with a shotgun and act as the `burglar'. (So the `break-in' looks fatal, for obvious reasons.)

Michael Lerner was hilarious as the hypocritical former lawyer of the Chicago 7. Giancarlo Esposito was realistic as the Louis Farrakhan-like fundamentalist. If the police weren't so unfunny (and other parts were written more cannily) it all would have been much better.

One on those rare DVD I've purchased and watch when I need to relax and have a laugh. Nic Cage is amazing in it and Jackson is as versatile as always. I can't help smiling watching Dabney Coleman (remembering him as Merle Jeeter in the Mary Hartman sitcom). I just love this movie. It's just clean fun and daring to show on screen the preconceived and non-politically correct concepts that some people have. I had this movie in a VHS format and could not help getting it in a DVD format. This is a comedy classic that you should purchase just to be able to watch it when you feel like it. So get some popcorn, get the family and friends around the screen and have a good time.

The reviews for `Amos & Andrew' are all over the place, from Leonard Maltin's `BOMB' to The Washington Post Style section critic's rave (though the Post's Weekend section reviewer gave it a devastating pan).

Any movie that gets this range of reaction is not all bad, and `Amos & Andrew' has a number of redeeming values.

Its racial satire (which can be serious as well as slapstick, often in the same minute) seems a natural extension of Stanley Kramer's `The Defiant Ones' (1958). In both films, a white and a black man are handcuffed together and escaping from the law.

The differences between the films are telling, however. In `Defiant,' both men are racists. They know little about each other's race, except what they think is the bad stuff (if I remember the film correctly). But both are poor and, as the film reveals, have much more in common than they thought.

In `A&A,' the black man is a third generation, college-educated upper middleclass professional. He has succeeded in a white world (Pulitzer-prize; well-paid for his books and screenplays; a celebrity and a college professor; and more). But he still dislikes and distrusts whites, with reason.

The white man is a drifter and petty thief, but he doesn't dislike blacks; indeed, he probably knows them better than the black man. And he's as much an outsider as the black man.

These ideas, and the comedy evolving from them, make `A&A' fascinating and, sometimes in a simplistic way, thought-provoking. The humor often is sharp and funny, though it can become too silly and off the point. So the film is both clever and stupid, original and cliché.

I often found myself laughing out loud as the film piled on smart gag after smart gag, slowing down only at the obvious, familiar and overplayed ones.

Some may find the basic premise, a black man thought to be a burglar only because he's seen in a house in an exclusive white neighborhood, as tasteless and offensive, or at least not played out with sufficient outrage.

Others may be grateful that such a pointed idea was dramatized without self-righteous anger and superiority. To them, this modest, light touch conveyed the message much more effectively, especially to those who needed to hear it, than a harder-edged film might have.

Overall, there's enough good stuff in 'A&A,' including the acting by Nicholas Cage (when he still was good) and Samuel L. Jackson to push the film to a 2 ½ to 3-star rating. It's worth a look.

Although the main focus here is undoubtedly on comedy, what makes it all the more successful is the underlying (highly unflattering) portrait of suburban America, often flirting with caricature yet not altogether devoid of subtlety; it avoids in particular the Black/White manicheanism often present even in more "serious" cinematic depictions of racism. Jackson and Cage are as usual wonderful actors, and the supporting cast does a pretty good job too at impersonating a variety of morons and other petty opportunists.

Hated by some critics, ignored by the movie-viewing public, "Amos and Andrew" is a very underrated movie with a message.

First of all, this film has great performances from the whole cast. Nicholas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Dabney Coleman, all of them were hilarious in this movie. Even the supporting cast (especially Bob Balaban) were hilarious. If you want to see Samuel L. Jackson actually act instead of just being some cop or criminal advocating senseless violence, see this movie. Second of all, the script was great; I loved all the twists and turns that the plot took. It's part of what made this movie so funny. I also enjoyed the political satire in Dabney Coleman's character. Finally, the movie contains an important message. It speaks out against racism. Even without the segregation which Martin Luther King, Jr. fought against, society is not colorblind, and that point is exhibited well in this movie.

Don't believe the IMDB vote rating or the high-and-mighty movie critics. Believe me. This is an excellent piece of filmmaking.