Un cadavre sur les bras

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.

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.

Let me first say that I am not by any means a lover of dark comedies. In fact, I have the tendency to hate that sub-genre more than almost any other (there are exceptions). I rented this rare movie, which I was surprised to even find, because of the cast. I kept my eyes off of any information about the movie before I saw it so I could keep my mind open, and I was very pleased with the result. I found myself laughing and chuckling frequently, something I was not expecting.

The plot focuses on two central characters: Jane (Elizabeth Perkins) and Harry (Judge Reinhold). Harry is one of his small desert city's few police officers. He is married to Enid (Maureen Mueller), a really nasty woman that abuses Harry. He's been having an affair with Enid's ditsy sister Jane. Enid catches them in the act one morning, which leads to a hilarious fight that results with Jane smashing a statue over Enid's head and killing her. Harry and Jane do some quick decision making and choose to not report the true story, but instead devise a way of making Enid's death look like an accident. But since Harry's partner (Jeffrey Jones) is outside the house, honking the car horn for Harry to come out, Jane must dispose of the body herself. Harry tells her what to do and leaves, but when Jane tries to accomplish it, she fails. So she calls up Harry to get her out of the jam. This happens over and over again, and each instance is pretty humorous.

Many people seem to compare this to the `Weekend at Bernie's' movies. I can sort of see where the comparison is coming from by listening to the premise, but I didn't notice any comparison while I watched it. There is a limp body, but Maureen Mueller isn't required to do the outrageous stuff that Terry Kiser was in his pair of films. Admittedly the `Bernie's' movies are better than `Over Her Dead Body' thanks to Kiser, but this one shouldn't be overlooked. What makes it funny in addition to the situations are the quirky characters. Both Reinhold and Perkins are funny, but there are other people that make this stand out. Jeffrey Jones makes the whole movie twice as fun. He steals every scene he is in. Also funny is Brion James, as a consistently drunk truck driver that this on the dead body. I laughed pretty hard during the scene where he is clawing on the hood of a car while Perkins drives it, trying to shake him off. All in all, I suppose this could have been funnier, but it is still good for laughs and has a script that works well, tying up all subplots. And I found the final scene to be hilarious. Leaving me laughing is a good way to end a good movie. Zantara's score: 8 out of 10.

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)!

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! (*)