Un cadavre sur les bras

Do you like films with plastic caricatures instead of characters, doing stupid things in order to advance an one-note plot that has worn out its welcome within the first ten minutes, and mumbling to themselves for the duration? If your answer is "Yes", this tiresome and unfunny comedy is right up your alley. If it is "No", SKIP IT! (*)

Apparently, it is impossible to buy a copy of this superb dark comedy, which is available for rent from some video stores under the title "Over Her Dead Body." This is a shame, because I am a devotee of dark comedies, and this is my all-time favorite, bar none. The hi-jinks mix with pathos in a most rib-tickling way in this film. Truly, if you don't laugh at loud at least a few times during this movie, you'd better check to see whether you, yourself, may be saddled with a dead body (your own)!

This is a story about a twisted love triangle and a troublesome corpse - the corpse of the protagonists' sister/wife! Of course, she was not a cooperative person while alive either - in fact, the picture opens with a dysfunctional family scene that will surely make you cringe!

The cast is outstanding - you'll love Jeffry Jones as the troublesome partner of policeman Judge Reinhold (the felonious husband) and you might even feel a bit of empathy for the two-timing sister played by Elizabeth Perkins.

Perhaps the best thing about this movie is its imitation of life, since you just know this is what would happen to you if you tried to get rid of your awful sister - even if only by mistake!

Oh, and be sure to pay attention whenever Brion James shows up in the plot. He really shines in this role! (And if you ever lived in the southwest, you probably met this guy at least once every other weekend!)

This is sort of a distaff "Weekend at Bernie's", only it's set in small-town New Mexico and there are cops instead of crooks. It ends up being darker and drier. "Bernie's" may be wackier, but this film is funnier in the long run, I think.

Elizabeth Perkins is a platinum blonde this time out, and looks even cuter than she usually does. She's a winning comedienne and is well teamed with Judge Reinhold and Jeffrey Jones. They could have been Lamour, Hope and Crosby starring in "The Road to Roswell" but thankfully that's a bit of New Mexico we don't get to see for a change.

Once upon a time, the inconvenience of a dead body was considered a topic worthy of the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, in one of his rare comedies, "The Trouble With Harry" ("Is He's Dead"), and more recently it has been a lesser plot point for the National Lampoon in the original and still riotous "Vacation".

Live comics stiff all the time, but dead ones are always good for a laugh.

It was a joy to watch this movie. It gets crazier by the minute. Very well put together. Outstanding acting by entire cast. I could not stop laughing.