All-American Murder

Listen, I've seen this movie a hundred times, showing it to friends and family as a lark. It's a hilarious buddy-movie/murder-mystery with witty, punny-yet-intelligent dialog ala Clue. No, there's nothing groundbreaking here, and the production values are what you would expect from something that, I believe, went straight to video. But why should that matter? This film is completely unpredictable, and has such classic lines as "The dean has knocked off more undergraduates than Kent State." (Hilarious, if you know some basic American history and get the double-ententre.) Most movies these days require that even simple verisimilitude fly out the window, so suspend disbelief, enter with no expectation, and enjoy. It'll keep you guessing, and laughing, until the very end.

This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen... and i was in it! Most of it was filmed on the campus at Oklahoma State University, where i was attending college at the time. I'm in a few scenes, which for me personally, was the only cool thing about the movie. I'm one of the students that runs up and finds the burning body on campus, and I'm in a couple of other scenes.

It does have a decent entrance by Walken... very Walkenesque, and entertaining. He's really one of the only things that lifts this train wreck from the complete utter depths of horrible.

Other than that it was good to get to hang out with Mr Walken briefly, and Richard Kind was very cool and hung out with us all quit a bit, and even played golf with some of us one day. Josie Bissett...well let's just say she really didn't say two words to any of us, and leave it at that.

Got a sympathy 3 from me merely because Walken and Kind were in it, and provided some cheesy, campy, wth moments. Incredibly horrible directing... so much so, the director should have played it off as 'I meant for it to have this surreal sucking, b movie thriller quality. huh, huh.. i meant to do that.' Yeah right.

This movie is your typical, cheesey, college murder flick, but it's not THAT bad. It is a little predictable, still it was fun to watch in a humorous way. As an huge fan of Charlie Schlatter, it was great to see his early work and to see how he has grown as an actor. I give the movie as a whole a "C," but if you watch it for a laugh, or to see Schlatter, it could easily rate a "B+."

In spite of some charming dialogue and a cast of seasoned professionals, All-American Murder doesn't have quite enough style or panache to thrill much and the pacing lags a bit after the first murder. The final twist is genuinely surprising, but there's not a lot of suspense or thrills on the way to getting there. Christopher Walken seems like a surprising choice for a role like this in a film such as this, but he's one of the more entertaining aspects of the film.

As cheesy and '80's' as this movie comes off as, I think many miss the humour and satire that embodies it all. Think of putting Risky Business, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Halloween, and The Breakfast Club into a blender. The first part is all sweet and predictable. But when the murders start happening, and more is revealed as to the perverted backgrounds of the students to the dean and his wife, it gets pretty deep. Walken's nonchalant character seems un-phased by the goings on, and seems to be a 'Scared Straight' mentor to young Artie to get him to mature and fear for his life. All in all, it does come off as a Made For TV, 80's romp. Yet the dialog, characters, language, and deviant background is memorably far from 'wholesome'. It's a fun movie that will stick with the viewer long after I think.