I tre amigos!

Love it. Love it. Love it. This movie is jam-packed with hilarity. The story is good for an 80s comedy as well. Chase, Martin and Short are a power house as the 3 Amigos. And El Guapo has so many good lines I'm laughing just thinking about them, "Do you even know what a plethora is???" Every time I hear that word I think of him, which is pretty sad I guess. The scene with Dusty Bottoms (Chase), singing at the celebrations as if he has a frog in his throat makes me laugh every time, My little buttercup scene in the tavern with Ned (Short) with the hankerchief on his head, the calls they have to make to summon the invisible swordsman, the part in the desert..."lip balm?" I'm embarrassed to say how many times I have seen this movie, I'm just going to say a lot...and would recommend to everyone!

Underrated John Landis comedy with fun music. Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short star as three silent film stars who are asked to defend a Mexican town from bandits. A plot reminiscent of The Magnificent Seven. It's such a fun light-hearted movie I don't see why it has so many detractors. Perhaps the humor isn't crude enough. This is certainly one of Landis' least vulgar comedies. To me the movie has an old-school kind of charm about it. It's full of lots of great sight gags, memorable lines, and cute Randy Newman songs. It moves at a nice pace and seems to enjoy its story instead of overloading you with one "bit" after another. So give it a shot if you like Landis' work or the work of the three stars. It's one of my favorite 80s comedies.

The Three Amigos is one of those movies that can be hugely entertaining and amusing but only if you keep in mind that it is not a serious film. Chevy Chase, Martin Short, and Steve Martin, some of the funniest men ever to work in comedy, all team up here as The Three Amigos, a group of out of work actors in early Hollywood cinema. The unfortunate thing is that this is not a movie that is greater than the sum of its parts, since I would expect more from actors with the caliber of Martin, Chase, and Short, even working individually, but even the fact that they are all not used to their full potential is not enough to bring down the rest of the comedy here.

The story involves the three out of work silent film actors, who suddenly find themselves unemployed and broke when they receive a telegram from a small village in Mexico desperately asking their assistance. I liked how clever the ploy was where the woman who sent the message was so poor that she could not afford enough words to make her desires clear, so the Amigos read the message and think that they are about to be paid a fortune just to make an appearance in this village. Naturally they jump at the chance since they have nothing better to do.

Most of the rest of the film deals with their adventures in this village, which they are supposed to be protecting from an evil villain but do not realize that this is real life until one of them gets shot. You would think that they would have caught on sooner, but on the other hand, they DID happen to stumble into the only tiny village in Mexico where no one speaks Spanish, so it's not hard to understand why they thought the whole thing was a set up. If I went to Mexico and was walking around a dusty village with nothing but endless desert on every side and every single person was speaking only English, I would also wonder what movie set I had just wandered onto.

There is some interesting biblical content, which is made interesting really only because of the great satire. As the Amigos are walking through the valley in the shadow of death, they come upon not the talking bush or the burning bush, but the SINGING bush, and can't seem to get it to stop singing long enough to answer their question. `Will you please stop singing and tell us if you are the singing bush!' There's a hilarious sequence right after this about the invisible horseman, and just before was one of my favorite moments in the entire film, when Chase attempts to get off his horse but only succeeds in getting onto the horse next to him facing backwards and seems to be unsure about what just happened.

A lot of this movie is made up of funny skits which are strung along a thin and less than convincing clothesline of a plot, but even though the plot itself is not very believable the movie is still very entertaining. There are a lot of scenes that seem to go too far or just don't really seem to fit with the rest of the film (such as the campfire scene where all the animals join in to the campfire singing), but for the most part the comedy is very good and there are a lot of memorable scenes (the canteen scene in the desert for example, is one to remember!). Not a film that was meant to win any Oscars, but there is definitely some great comic entertainment to be had with The Three Amigos.

I looked up this movie on IMDb fully expecting to find a lot of comments that reflected my opinion, that this is a great little film. I was quite surprised at how many people don't feel the same way I do.

Some of the movies detractors seem to suggest the movie is a bit slow and that it misses opportunities for packing in lots of jokes. I can't agree, I think the pace is just right and that the movie's direction is more deftly handled than you might think. Some of the set ups in this film are developed meticulously over time allowing plenty of humorous moments along the way to the pay-off. And when they pay-off, they pay-off beautifully.

For example I love the scene in which a German mercenary enters a really dangerous looking Mexican bar. The room is full of thugs and cut-throats who laugh at the German's prim appearance and so he kills a few of them. He then instructs the rest of the patrons to be more respectful of strangers and to expect some friends of his to drop in later. The mercenary leaves and soon the Three Amigos arrive wearing camp looking Mexican costumes. It's not long before they start to sing an extremely girly song to the patrons of the bar called "My Little Buttercup".

The song is accompanied by the most effeminate dance routine committed to film. The mystified bandits all assume the Three Amigos are the German mercenary's friends and go along with the song and dance routine which after a while becomes so cute it makes you feel physically sick.

And here is the pay off, the Amigos leave as the real mercenaries arrive, one of the bandits notices the pearl handled revolvers one of the strangers is wearing and yells "Look at the sissy guns". Carnage ensues, the German sharp shooters finish off the rest of the patrons in a bloody gun fight, the confused looks on the bandit's faces throughout this whole routine is hilarious.

This film isn't desperate to pack gags into every available space, and because of this it feels more controlled and less try-hard, to me most of the jokes are of a high enough quality they don't need a lot of superfluous back up gags. I also enjoy the overall up beat tone of the film, even the bad guys are actually really nice to each other ( the sweater Scene is touching ). I think it's the warmth between the characters that really makes this film for me, I think if the gags kept coming at a breakneck speed we wouldn't have a chance to warm to the characters, the Mexican atmosphere and music the way that we do.

I give this a ten out of ten even though it's not a perfect film, it makes me feel as good as a perfect film would.

This is a funny movie and has some of the funniest actors in it. Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Steve Martin are brilliant in a movie that relies completely on their given talent - comedy. It's sad that not many movies were made, having different comedians in them, like Spies like us, also starring chevy chase opposite to Dan Aykroyd.

A nice attempt to make a movie without a real story, but instead have the actors make up for it. 7/10