Escapade à New York

I have always been a big fan of Steve Martin, and hilarious 80's comedies like 'Trains Planes and Automobiles', so thats why I decided to rent this film. And I can tell you, I was not disappointed! Its not an hilarious movie, but it is funny from beginning to end. The mishaps that Goldie and Steve go through are sometimes predictable, but are always good for a chuckle. And John Cleese just steals the show. I have not seen the 1970 version, but I found this one pleasant and light hearted. I love watching 'endless mishap' comedies like National Lampoon's Vacation and 'Trains Planes and Automobiles', and this is another one to add to my collection. Steve Martin, you are king! And I can;t understand everyones negative comments on this film - maybe they were expecting just too much.

Neil Simon's script for the original 1970 hit, "The Out-of-Towners," was, essentially, a one-joke skit stretched out to a feature-length film. Starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis as two suburbanites from Ohio who experience a nightmare of frustrating complications when they hit the Big Apple, the film managed to generate some laughs as well as a great deal of grating repetitiousness.

The 1999 remake, with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn in the central roles, manages to be a far worse film. The original at least seemed grounded in some sense of reality as the couple fell victim to a believable, if overstated, series of tourist mishaps; this version spins off into slapstick delirium, going so far as to have its main characters actually swinging on hotel signs six stories above street level and John Cleese as a snippy concierge prancing around in lady's clothing to Donna Sommer's "Bad Girls." Also, in the original, Jack Lemmon seemed determined to really take on all the people who arrayed themselves against him and the film conveyed a real sense of this implacable, almost malevolent force known as NEW YORK coming down with all its might on this innocent couple from the Midwest. In the remake, Steve Martin seems strangely passive and unharried and the victory-over-the-city theme comes along only at the very end. Without that added dimension of epic frustration, the new film robs the original of whatever audience identification it might once have had and simply devolves into an undisciplined display of unfunny slapstick.

Martin, Hawn and Cleese are game players, but this "Out-of-Towners" should indeed have been driven out of town!

I loved the original, Jack Lemmon at his best. Great story, typical Neil Simon script. I'm not a Sandy Dennis fan, but she was very good in this role, surprisingly.

Two of my favorite comedic actors are Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin. I grew up on them. But, they just don't cut the mustard in this remake. I can't place my finger on it, but it just isn't funny. It's not just the writing, it's the actors and their direction.

I was so excited when this movie was released. Who doesn't love John Cleese? Well, I don't in this role. I did enjoy seeing a great stand-up comic, Steve Mittleman, in a cameo role in the early portion of the film. Mittleman was one of the funniest comics I remember from my childhood days.

This movie is a waste of time.

When I went to the sneak preview, I was afraid they would give me 'Runaway Bride', but they managed to come up with something so full of nothing, that I almost left during the break (and I have never done that), and I wouldn't have had to convince my friends. This thing is filled with jokes that I would be ashamed to come up with, like a candy bar stuck in the machine. We have never seen that before right? At one point Steve Martin is sitting in a Limo, and realizes he swallowed an XTC pill, then jumps out of the car and starts to rape a tree. John Cleese was the only funny part, but do yourselves a favour, and go see 'Runaway Bride'. I am sure it's much better. Dennis Pennis was right.

Henry and Nancy Clark have been married for 24 years and it is starting to show. Henry has lost his job but has kept it secret and plans to get a new job in New York. Having had their last child move out of the house the day before, Nancy isn't sure what to do with her time and decides to join Henry on his trip to New York. However a fog-bound city sees them diverted to Boston and struggling to get to their destination. Actually getting into Manhattan is only the first challenge in an eventful 24 hours that could only happen in New York!

Nothing about this film suggested that it would be anything special; in fact the presence of Marc Lawrence as writer only promised the sort of safely comic humour that he produced with Two Weeks Notice, Miss Congeniality and similar projects. And from the very start it is obvious that Lawrence has produced his usual standard and that director Weisman has no aspirations to do more than churn out a rather derivative but amusing rom-com. So that is just what we get and if that is OK with you then you should be alright, although hardly impressed. The plot bumbles along from one unlikely scenario to the next; most of them are ho-hum but occasionally it tickled me. Most viewers (myself included) will find it all a bit obvious and weak but the undemanding will maybe find it amusing enough to serve as a distraction.

Part of the film working (albeit on this level) is the partnership of Martin and Hawn. Even with the rather obvious material to work with, they do work well together and produce some laughs where they may not have existed on the page. Martin is only ever a hair away from mugging but, although not a shade on his former glory, he fits the lazy tone well. Hawn is a bit less convincing but is still quite amusing; the only problem with her is that she has to carry the more emotionally complex character and she can't get that right and mainly just overplays it for easy laughs, robbing the film of the engaging realism that it needed to have if it really wanted to pull off the emotional ending (which of course it doesn't actually want to do!). Cleese is embarrassing and can do nothing with the poor material he is served with – it is pretty much below him and it shows.

Overall then a totally by-the-numbers, obvious little romantic comedy. It is fairly forced and contrived which was a problem but bits of it rose above the rest and generally it provided just enough to be distracting for those in an undemanding mood. However the majority of us will see something that lacks any real effort and it doesn't encourage me to do much into it when watching. The two leads brighten it up a little bit but it is hard not to see the glaring lack of originally and spark at pretty much every turn.