Il treno più pazzo del mondo

Richard Lester is one of the great comedy directors, but amidst the brilliance there was always this sloppy, cheap-feeling shlockiness peeking out from underneath, balanced out because it was still often funny.

Finders Keepers magnifies Lester's worst tendencies without the counterbalancing humor. Not only isn't the movie funny, but often I couldn't figure out why the movie expected us to find it funny. The movie seems to think Beverly D'Angelo calling everyone she meets by a slur for gay people funny, but even if you don't apply modern social norms to an ancient movie, it's just not funny.

I watched the first half hour, and then, since some people claim it gets better towards the end, I watched the last 20 minutes. It's basically a bad 80s comedy with forced silliness (an angry mob of roller derby women) and unconvincing sex (woman pulls a gun on the protagonist then takes a bath with him).

Richard Lester made a lot of terrific movies. This wasn't one of them.

I managed to catch this on TV several years ago and haven't seen hide nor hair of it since. This is a shame because it is quite funny and full of Richard Lester's trademark humor. As with most films about con men (and women), a simple description of the plot would be anything but, but suffice to say Lester and his cast do an admirable job of keeping all the balls in the air for most of the film's running time. Watch for Jim Carrey in an early role as the dim-witted draft dodger.

"Finders Keepers" won't solve world peace, but it's good escapist fun and an excellent antidote for Lester's sub-par "Superman III."

I saw this movie on HBO in 1985, taped it and watched it again and again over the years. It's a wonderful screwball comedy, and Michael O'Keefe is great as the con man character who's trying to pass himself off as a soldier taking his dead buddy's casket home for burial.

I would have thought it would have found its way to DVD long before this, even if only because it was Jim Carrey's first real movie role. His part is small -- only a couple of scenes -- but it was easy to see he was going to be a big comic star.

Other great actors in it were Beverly D'Angelo, Louis Gossett Jr, Ed Lauter and Brian Dennehy. And who could ever forget Dennehy's great line when he says the mother of the dead soldier is "prostate with grief?" It's also the only movie I can remember that used Don McLean's "American Pie" over the closing credits.

Please, let's get this out on DVD.

Richard Lester is an American-born director who was a quiet architect of a certain type of English screen comedy, working on early TV experiments with members of radio's "Goon Show" (Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan), then the first couple of Beatles movies, then some movie stuff which parallelled the surreal comedy of the TV Monty Python, inc "The Bed-Sitting Room" (from a play co-written by Milligan) and "How I Won The War". This is a nice little film which has some of the gagsmanship of his old stuff, and kind of a "What's Up Doc" type plotline, with money from a heist, plenty of screwball characters, and general old-fashioned movie farce confusion. Doesn't probably get the momentum it wants to, but it's low-key affable loopyness is pretty watchable. As the Maltin review suggests, in a pretty decent little comedy cast, the David Wayne turn as the antique, shambolic train conductor is the real highlight, with laughs pretty much every time he turns up. In Lester's career, it's not a "Hard Day's Night", "Three Musketeers", "Cuba", or even "Juggernaut", but it's different and enjoyable enough on its own terms for comedy movie addicts to take a look.

In the grand scheme of things, "Finders Keepers" is one of those silly comedies that they cranked out in the '80s. This one has a scam artist (Michael O'Keefe, of "Caddyshack" fame) accidentally getting mixed up in a wacky larceny case on a train after he has to escape the cops and a roller skate team in 1973. You see, he thinks that a coffin on board the train holds a man killed in Cambodia, but it actually holds an exorbitant amount of money stolen by a woman believed to have been kidnapped. If that sounds overwhelming, just wait 'til you see what happens on the train! The point is, this movie makes no pretense about being completely goofy. Probably the main reason that anyone would notice it nowadays is the presence of a pre-fame Jim Carrey as...well, I might spoil a major part of the movie if I explain it. But one can see a slight hint of the roles that would later make him famous.

Speaking of the present day, there's a link in "FK": Watergate. Throughout much of the movie, we hear about Pres. Nixon (Nickerson?), the Watergate investigations, and how Spiro Agnew may not last in his position. Agnew was of course replaced by the recently deceased Gerald Ford. Personally, I believe that Ford doesn't deserve the praise that he's been getting (what really did he do besides fall down?).

But anyway, this is a pretty funny movie. You're sure to like it. Also starring Beverly D'Angelo, Louis Gossett Jr., Pamela Stephenson, Ed Lauter and Brian Dennehy.

Back when Richard Lester was directing The Beatles' movies, who ever would have guessed that he would direct this flick?