 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 stream / download | 🎙️ EPISODE 693: 04.12.23 I'm feeling good, man. Just took down an entire bag of PumpkGo — our proud sponsor. "The only dog laxative that humans can eat too™," as they say. This one was a pleasant surprise on the heels of the stinkerooni DC Cab. Some 80s comedies are just built differently (and that's how I feel after a healthy helping of PumpkGo, honestly). The only directorial effort from writer/producer Dennis Feldman (The Golden Child, both Species movies (!!)) is a totally stupid, slapstick-driven run-of-the-mill comedy on the surface. The kind that's a dime a dozen for the decade. But it's actually hiding some pretty deep ideas in between all the nonsense and madness. It's a fun, weird and surprisingly thoughtful movie! |
Don't get me wrong, this movie is more stupid/silly than profound, but it's fascinating that someone even attempted to insert ideas of this nature (toxic masculinity, trans rights, even?—more on that one later) into an odd couple buddy romp. Because I'm feeling incredibly lazy today, I'm just going to steal the Wikipedia plot synopsis but I'm using the blockquote HTML so it's fine! Don't worry about it. After scientists accidentally spill a deadly chemical into the ocean that will eventually kill all life on earth, a group of aliens offer to help humanity. They offer a choice: the 'Good Package' to clean up the mess, or the 'Big Gun', a weapon capable of destroying the planet. The aliens only ask for a glass of water in return, which must be delivered by CIA agent Pillbox, the only human they entirely trust. |
While on a run-thru of the alien meetup, agent Pillbox is shot and killed in a forest by an unseen assassin in an inside-job. FBI computers find Bob Wilson (Ritter), an insurance agent who looks just like Pillbox, and suggest sending Wilson in Pillbox's place. However, Wilson is a meek office worker who we initially see being easily pushed around by a group of local bullies and by a milkman who is trying to seduce his wife.In fact, before said shoot-out, Belushi makes a homemade nail machine gun in Ritter's garage...
Tough guy government agent Nick Pirandello (Belushi) is sent to recruit Wilson and escort him to the meeting; he is also to build-up Wilson's confidence and decrease his insecurities. He meets Wilson at Wilson's home, with Russian agents close on his tail, who want a unique map to the meeting place. Wilson thinks Pirandello is an intruder and tries ineffectively to attack him, culminating in a shoot-out with the Russians that devastates Wilson's house.
Pirandello explains the mission as the pair head to meet the aliens near Washington, D.C. Wilson doesn't believe the story, and instead believes that Pirandello is insane.In order to convince him, Belushi whips out a pen the aliens gave him and sticks it through a baseball and then the pen-baseball flies back to space...
Later, they hilariously end up at Belushi's parents home outside of Las Vegas. This is one of the more interesting scenes in the movie as we see actress Dyanne Thorne (best known as Ilsa from the sexploitation series) in the role of Belushi's post-sexual-reassignment-surgery father hitting on Ritter. Somehow, through Ritter's revulsion and Belushi's even-keeled, astonishingly progressive response, this manages to be both anti- and pro-trans simultaneously, no small feat for 1987 or any era perhaps?...Wilson is then willing to do the job, but lacks skills and confidence. The pair meet corrupt CIA agents dressed as clowns, part of a splinter group that would rather receive the Big Gun. Pirandello tells Wilson that he is in fact a Russian sleeper "Super Agent", at which point Wilson charges into battle and is knocked out with one punch. Pirandello defeats the clowns, but leads the waking/groggy Wilson to believe he did it. Wilson gains a new macho attitude.
Pirandello, weakened by love for a dominatrix he meets in a bar in Pittsburgh, abandons the mission, leaving Wilson on his own. During a final shootout between the rogue CIA element and Wilson, Pirandello comes to his senses and rejoins the mission; together they defeat the others, including Pirandello's boss. Wilson meets with the aliens and receives the Good Package to save humanity (in exchange for the glass of water that they wanted, which is filled up from a random dispenser hidden in a tree)...
Wilson returns to his home, which has been repaired. With his new-found machismo, he deals with the bullies and the amorous milkman, bringing the film to an end.Honest to god, this was more entertaining than I would have ever imagined. And I don't know if it works in transferring its message (especially in 2023) but you gotta give them an A for effort for just trying to do something outside of the box even if the box in this case is a kitchen sink full of genre mashups in service of mostly slapstick and obvious humor!
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 692 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 694 ⫸
⫷ EPISODE 692 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 694 ⫸
Real Men is a 1987 American comedy film starring James Belushi and John Ritter as the heroes: suave, womanizing CIA agent Nick Pirandello (Belushi) and weak and ineffectual insurance agent Bob Wilson (Ritter). It was released on December 16, 1983.
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