In fuga col malloppo

If any film deserves to become a cult classic, this is one. It is very bizarre and, truly, unlike anything I've ever seen. It might be trying to rip off the Coen brothers' slapstick comedies, but it has its own strange tone unlike their films. It's like a living cartoon, basically. It feels even broader than even something like 'The Ladykillers' or 'Raising Arizona' - if that seems possible. The main point of watching it is Brando, who is unrecognizable with his hysterical swede accent. He even does slapstick ... using his enormous girth for comic effect. It is strangely enduring and, despite everything, likable! Overall, this is not for all tastes. But if you like iconic stars in very strange films, this is for you. It might deserve a rediscovery sometime soon. When the comments pages mainly only has two responses -- it's great or it's horrible -- you know something interesting is going on.

I remember seeing Yves Simoneau's "Free Money" in the new release section of a video store, despite its never having been in the theaters. I thought it odd that a movie starring Marlon Brando would appear out of nowhere. It turns out that the movie got released in Singapore in 1998 (see the header about the movie on IMDb). As for the movie itself, it makes no pretense about being silly, with Brando as a sadistic warden whose daughters feign pregnancy to force their loser boyfriends into shotgun weddings. While Brando's role reminded me of his performance as Vito Corleone, it still didn't seem like the sort of role in which I would expect to see him. The rest of the cast is OK in their roles, but the plot is so routine that the movie isn't as entertaining as it could be. Worth seeing once.

If you can handle a world about half a bubble off plumb, there's a lot of fun to be had in "Free Money". It's quite obvious that all of these characters would vanish in a puff of smoke in what we call the "real world", but inside their own rules of logic and social constraints it all makes perfect and hilarious sense.

Brando's warden personifies what Joseph Heller once called "a gigantic belch of a man", and Hayden Church and Sheen are perfect as man's men dragged either unconscious or screaming into their twin high school bride's playhouse version of married life.

Donald Sutherland has a nice turn as a psychotic judge, and Mira Sorvino turns in a fine performance as a kind of bridge between "our world" and the asylum run by lunatics that the rest of the characters live in.

It's quite possible that we could have lived without some of the brutality (cattle prods, gladiator fights in the prison) but then again, what the hell. It's a 90's film.

--bt

Free Money was not at all what I had expected. It is an entertaining comedy with Brando having great fun. Charlie Sheen also plays against type as a nerd duped into marriage with one of Brando's daughters.

This premiered on Sky TV in the UK without even so much as a video release but is much more entertaining than a lot of other Charlie Sheen movies of late. I enjoyed it!

I, too, am a fan of Marlon Brando. The talent the man has is unbelievable. Who could have imagined a brilliant slapstick comedy featuring Brando, Sheen, and Sutherland? Both the writer and cast director deserve an award. The shifting role Brando plays as overprotective father to ruthless Warden is one of the best things about the movie. But the show also belongs to Sheen and Church. I hadn't seen much of the other actor, Church, before, but he was hilarious in this movie, too. I never saw this in the theaters, I don't know if it showed. If you want to see a good, light-hearted movie that will keep you laughing, go and rent this movie tonight. This is one of the few actually funny comedies to come out of the 90's.