Cheech & Chong's Still Smokin'

Cheech & Chong are obviously not everyones taste, but I for one, think that they are two of a kind, that deserve more recognition from those in the, so called 'know'. This little gem is yet more proof, that these guys are as funny today as they where twenty years ago. Sex, drugs & hippy wierd stuff, at it's best.

This sequel to "Cheech And Chong's Up In Smoke" finds the drug addled duo (Richard "Cheech" Marin, Thomas Chong) wandering into a bankrupt film festival in Amsterdam. In an effort to raise funds, the duo plan a drug sale. No better or worse than any of the duo's other films together.

"Still Smokin" isn't as good as Cheech and Chong's earlier movies due to the over-emphasis on vignettes, but it still elicits some laughs. This one has the pot-loving twosome going to Amsterdam for a film festival, where the audience is expecting Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton! From there, the buddies have a series of absurd adventures. The lengthy skits that they imagine drag on a little too long, but the actual shots of the sauna (plus Cheech's own "ET") make up for that.

I've heard that Amsterdam, and probably the entire Netherlands, is a really fine place. This movie really makes it look that way. It's not their best movie, but easily better than their follow-up "Corsican Brothers".

After seeing Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke, I thought that Still Smokin' would be just as hilarious. It turns out I was way wrong and I was very disappointed at the quality of this film. Among the awful cast, the transitions to and from dream sequences were so confusing that I wasn't sure which part was the actual film and which part was the dream sequence. Occasionally the film would make me start to laugh, but then Cheech would become some annoying character that I just wanted to slap. Cheech and Chong really let me down with this one- but I'm not too upset because there will always be Up In Smoke.

Let's be honest, Cheech & Chong weren't exactly artists, but some of their earlier movies were a lot of fun. This was their 4th or 5th movie, and it's basically a tired rehash of the same stoner jokes they were knocking out in Up In Smoke. Having said that, it is still fun to a certain audience; the same audience who like Beavis & Butthead or Jay & Silent Bob really.

It's not just the infantile humour, it's that age old story of 'loser makes good' that we all find so satisfying over and over again. While C&C don't really achieve anything in any of their movies, they do have fun not achieving it.

In this movie they end up in Amsterdam, where they are mistaken for Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton (obviously). You can pretty much imagine the rest of the movie as is. It's stupid, it's childish, it's juvenile - and that's exactly the point.