You Can't Hurry Love

David Packer (whom you may remember from the NBC-tv miniseries' "V" (1983) and "V: The Final Battle" (1984)) is so wonderful in this film. His acting is so natural and very easy to watch. His voice is nice and soft to listen to. His personality is kind and gentle. No attitude here. David Packer makes this film worth watching. The cameo appearance by Kristy McNichol is fun to watch. Wish there were more scenes of her. Yes, that is Sally Kellerman singing nicely during the end credits.

I think the title is trying to explain why this film ddrrrraaaags along. It's like swimming in molasses. Lots of dialogue here but none of it of any value. I challenge anyone to sit through this entire movie in one sitting without falling asleep or going mad. But then one should expect no less from the co-writer of "Three for the Road", that movie was no winner either. I'm sure this movie looked good to Bridget Fonda on paper, it just should have stayed there.

David Packer plays a young single making his way through the blind date scene in loony Los Angeles, finding many nuts and flakes in the bowl before clean, uncomplicated Bridget Fonda makes his day. A broadly-drawn, low-budget and low-class comedy made up of an unbroken string of stupid lines. Kristy McNichol's brief appearance as a mercurial performance artist lasts about seven minutes, but she's the best thing in the movie. The rest of the picture is pretty vile, with additional cameos by Charles Grodin and Sally Kellerman adding nothing. Crass material not even good enough for your standard TV sitcom. * from ****

Blast from the past with this cast: David Leisure, Frank Bonner (wkrp), Charles Grodin (mister low key), sally kellerman (back to school), Kristy McNichol. In the film, Eddie (Packer) heads to LA to hang with his cousin Skip (McGinnis). The midwest guy has a hard time fitting in, and the job Skip got for him is handing out flyers on the beach! He gives video dating a try, but each date is wackier than the one before. It's a bubble gum flick, with lots of saxophone, and big hair. The actors all show weird smiles after each sentence. There's barely a plot, where mom and dad are trying to convince Eddie to come back home. Of course, there's full frontal female nudity. That's about the only redeeming feature of this one. Moves so slowly. Written and directed by Richard Martini. This was his first direction of a full length film. Seems to have done a bunch of docs recently.

It's hard to believe how terrible movies like this can get made, let alone with a cast this talented and fun. I suppose they were sold on the premise, which is not a bad one: A guy from Ohio moves to California to try to get into advertising and find love, only to end up with an "advertising" job that consists of handing out flyers at the beach and on a string of hilariously bad dates gotten through a video dating service where he thinks he needs to pretend to be someone he's not in order to attract a girl.

Sounds okay, right? Well, none of the jokes hit, almost all the bits that are supposed to be funny are just stupid, and there is very little romance in this until the end, all tied up in a bundle of ridiculous cliches that will make you groan out loud.

The thing is, this has an actually half decent lead and several well known and amazing costars in it! I was surprisingly impressed with David Packer's ability to actually make me care about his idiot character. I've always liked Bridget Fonda but while she shows up throughout the movie, they don't give her as much time as they should, in my opinion. They tease romance between her and the lead but it's done really poorly, and the chemistry is terrible between them. Tony Geary, Kristy McNichol, and Charles Grodin all have great bit parts that I found fun to watch. Porn star Candie Evans even shows her amazing body off for a few seconds in two scenes. They all kept me watching, but wow, is this script bad.

Richard Martini wrote AND directed this, so he's the one to blame. I don't see a casting director but whoever got all these fun people to star in this is a genius.

It's not the worst thing I've ever seen but that's hardly a recommendation. If the cast interests you at all, it's better than staring at the wall, I guess. It's got a couple fun moments in it, but it's bad. Really bad. Good luck.