Road Lawyers and Other Briefs

A nice compilation of comedic ideas and for the most part superior to the stuff the studios package and put out. The best part of this is the last segment which is a dubbed version of "Radar Men". Not a new technique, but this one at least has a storyline to go with some pretty funny material and not just a series of one liners like other dubbed movies.

Now, I know that independent films aren't made to be Oscars, but they should at least be SOMEWHAT bearable. Corny lines can be funny when used sparingly and at the right moments, but when they are used to hold up the extremely weak foundation of the movie itself by being said every friggin minute, it just doesn't work out. At all. The only reason this isn't getting a 1 is due to the fake-lip-syncing getting about 3 chuckles out of me. The rest is just cinematic diarrhea...it's something no one wants or wants to see.

I'd give "Road Lawyers" a 3 by itself but there are other shorts on the tape. It barely makes sense and the "special effects" aren't very special. Escape From Heaven isn't a much better film about what heaven is really like (5 out of 10). Radar Men on the Moon made me laugh pretty hard because it is done like a Mystery Science Theater 3000 show but it seems like it took little effort to make aside from writing the jokes (8 out of 10). The final short Hairline was my favorite because it has some humor and some drama as it shows a middle-aged man coping with the lose of his hair (8 out of 10). If you fast forward through the first two shorts, this is an enjoyable tape. I have no idea why they headlined with Road Lawyers, but that is the reason it has such a low rating. I wish I could separate the votes for this movie, but as a whole I gave it a 6.

This movie was the star attraction of Stupid Movie Wednesday when it first came out on video. The Road Lawyer's never ending string of cheesy puns delivered with deadpan expressions got a few laughs from the gang once the proper amount of alcohol was applied.

Escape from Heaven was a decent film school concept but wasn't too memorable. It tried to be more than it was. The dubbed sci-fi short at the end was inspired in the days before anyone knew of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It can't hold up since MST3K has shown us all how it's done.

This is a film to watch when you're in the mood for a dumb movie that is well in touch with it's dumbness.

My review was written in December 1990 after watching the program on AIP video cassette.

This compilation of short subjects for the video market offers some yocks but there's no award-winning material here.

Punning title is derived from the leadoff entry "Road Lawyers", a 1987 spoof of the Mad Max films that is presented here with a 1990-made prolog set in a boardroom. Made by Robert Rhine, who also stars, it's a labored, overlong riff on the pun, with legalese and the more venal characteristic of the legal profession grafted onto the George Miller opus.

Shot mainly with pixillation techniques to have Mild Milt (Rhine) scooting along the landscape in his easy chair, film never achieves the intended "SCTV" level of satire (especially disappointing because of Rhine;s physical similarity to "SCTV" maven Eugene Levy).

"Escape from Heaven" is a more imaginative spoof of religion that also gets bogged down. This 1989 University of Southern California student short is styled like a women's prison film with the Catholic religion mildly lampooned, as in a wisecrack: "What we have here is a failure to excommunicate".

"Radar Men from the Moon" is an extended excerpt from that 1952 Republic serial (introducing jet-packed Commander Cody) with a quartet of comics writing and voicing over silly dialog. Firesign Theater did a better job in this mode over a decade ago with "J-Men Forever".

Finale is another one-note pic made in 1982, "Hairline", about the nightmares of a guy obsessed with his thinning hair. Punchline is an anticlimax.