La scatola misteriosa

This might have made a good TV episode, and it's entertaining enough, but it's nothing special. If you were looking for chemistry between our two leads, let me put it this way. If good chemistry advances science without causing damage, Harry and Rachel working together are what happened to Ruben's club. That's not to say they don't have some good moments.

There is potential for this to become a romantic buddy detective comedy. As I listened to an online radio station while typing this, I was hearing the theme from "Moonlighting", but this certainly isn't that. In fact, the movie takes a while to get to the point where it will achieve anything close to that.

Michael Keaton is a respected actor. That's now. This was then. I'm not saying he's a bad actor, but he just doesn't show the potential here to become what he is now. He is likeable enough and shows a lot of intelligence.

Rae Dawn Chong has her good moments. Her excitement over getting a major case is one of these. Rachel is tough and smart but cute.

John Davidson is exactly what you might expect, a used car salesman type who is too full of himself.

There is also a good-looking billionaire who created the device, but I don't remember his name. The actor did a good job.

After something terrible happens at Ruben's club, an exciting chase through New York City, Staten Island and New Jersey results.

The music in this movie is terrible 80s garbage, except for all the great music toward the end with the major lotto prize giveaway. But one of the performers of the bad music actually does an impressive job as an actor in the film. Meat Loaf is the frightening tough guy Titus, who doesn't say any words other than interjections such as "Ow" until his final scene. where he says one intelligent sentence. With little more than an evil smile, he manages to be one of this movie's standout characters. I don't remember his partner's name but he's good too.

The scenes leading to the climax are quite entertaining.

Yes, it's formula. No, it doesn't quite achieve anything remarkable. But I was entertained.

Michael Keaton is a genuine comic actor; as this unusual buddy comedy-thriller caper goes on to showcase it. His likeable combination with Rae Dawn Chong (private PI) is naturally brought across. Keaton nails his down-on-his-luck character looking to score big to utter perfection. It's the two leads, witty banter and some amusing support parts (Meat Loaf's novel sweaty henchman) that make it watchable.

They need to be, as the contrived plot is uninteresting and very convoluted. The script is just as perplexing. Never does it fuse together. Something about a corrupt multi-million dollar lotto ring scam with a murder-mystery angle. One or two spontaneous set-pieces work, but for most part the direction remains quite pedestrian.

Usually I like these types of dark comedy-thrillers, where the protagonist/s faces danger around nearly every corner and encountering odd situations along the way. It's just the story and direction needs to match that level of excitement, in which case it falls short. Real short. You can easily see why this film is forgotten.

It's movies like these that make me understand why Hollywood writers quit the biz or worse when there are potential masterpieces sitting a filing cabinet somewhere. I remember this was one of those movies that HBO played every other day after 8pm because the licensing was so cheap. I'm sure they never made their money back on this stinker. I get it. Michael Keaton was a hot commodity at the time. But good grief. And Meatloaf? Did he waive his paycheck for a role in the movie? Woof! I'm a big Keaton fan and this movie proves that you can be a big star, make a dud or two and then emerge as Batman. Hats off to you, Sir.

This is an 80s action movie with a clunky plot about rigged lotteries. I put this in the same class as Jumpin Jack Flash. Both are mid 80s action comedies with clunky plots. They have no flow at all causing the movie to stall at times. That gets tedious. That's when you start noticing how your butt is getting numb in tue seat and the mind starts to wander like wondering if you should bother going to the bathroom or what you will eat later. Your mind looks for something, anything more interesting than what you are seeing.

The unintentional comedy in this flick is Meat Loaf's portrayal of a mute psychopathic henchman. He manages the facial expressions and all but just being ugly doesn't make you a convincing bad guy. I think if he played it as someone trying to be friendly, it would have been 10 times more creepy and effective. He doesn't ruin the movie but he makes me laugh just looking at him. I think he was trying to be a little like Hugh Keays-Byrne in Mad Max with the staring.

Michael Keaton is great in just about everything and he would go on to do better work. Rae Dawn Chong unfortunately is mostly only remembered for movies of this caliber because she didn't get too many leading roles later in her career. She is good in this. Actually, the overall cast is pretty good but I dont know, the script or directing or both fail in a major way.

"The Squeeze" is one of those movies that sadly doesn't work. Keaton's colorful performance can't save a convoluted script that tries to juggle wild comedy with thriller elements. There is a line in the climax that oddly summarized the film in a nutshell.

"Its seems like your imagination has finally outpaced reality," one character says.

It was so uncanny how well this phrase described the film that I began to think the writer, Daniel Tiplitz, was making a reference to himself! "The Squeeze" is a film with a realistic grounding, but is stuffed with outlandish, completely far-fetched ideas. Watching the film felt like viewing a dream of seeing the movie itself (if this makes any sense at all). I realized this when I tried describing scenes of the film and found it was much like describing a dream.

It starts out pleasant enough with a shady poker game where Michael Keaton hilariously tries to bluff the other guys at the table, but doesn't manage to be the least bit convincing. It was an acceptable beginning, but things were thrown completely off course when he gets home to his apartment that has a large rhino made out of TV screens sitting in it!

Anyway, Keaton gets mixed up with a young PI (Rae Dawn Chong) who uncovers lottery corruption. They try to piece a muddled mystery together, but the film is so out-there that the deeply buried story becomes lost. This isn't exactly a problem, however. I had an enormously fun time viewing the film, no matter how much it descends into bomb territory.

Unfortunately, nothing can stop the fact that this is pretty bad movie. It has a confused story, needless characters and some overly-violent scenes.

There is some fun to bad had here, and Michael Keaton is a riot as usual, but it simply doesn't work.

(2 out of 4)