MAKING THE GRADE (1984)

MAKING THE GRADE (1984)

Tagline: If you can't make . . . fake it!

(Rich People, Romance, Terrible Humor) [R]

You’re unstable, aren’t you…

So in this one, a rich brat hires Eddie (who owes a ton of money to a shady loan shark named “Dice”) to go to an elite prep school and graduate in his place. He wants to go off to travel the world on his father’s dime. “Dice” puts a good amount of pressure on Eddie to graduate so that the rich kid can pay him which leads to “Dice” attempting other lucrative dealings with the leaders of the school. There is also a bit of a romance in this damn thing, but to be honest it’s really hardly focused on at all. 

First off this movie was originally slated to have a sequel but bombed at the box office so that never worked out. 80’s comedy is very hit and miss and this one is about 90%, miss. I can overlook crass humor which I am really not into, but pretty much every joke is cringe-worthy or just flat-out bad. The storyline isn’t much better, so this is going to be a rough review…just getting that out right now.

This was Andrew Dice Clay’s first non-TV feature movie. If you don’t know who he is, that’s fine. Back in the ’80s and 90’s he was a huge comedian who is best known for THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE. This movie also stars Judd Nelson who plays Eddie. I think Judd Nelson (best known for THE BREAKFAST CLUB) does okay in this, but overall the only performance that really stood out was Ronald Lacey. He plays a guy named Nicky in this who is a hot-dog salesman and works for “Dice”. Lacey however is best known for being the crazy Nazi in INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK that gets his hand burnt like crazy trying to obtain a medallion from Marion. The rich kid in this movie is played by Dana Olsen. He doesn’t really act, he’s only been in 3 productions, but he does write a lot. He is most famous for writing THE BURBS and INSPECTOR GADGET. The main female actress and Eddie’s love interest is played by Jonna Lee. I don’t want to say she sucked in this movie, but they're just wasn’t anything special here. She is most famous for playing several roles in the TV series “Murder She Wrote”.

So far we’ve got a bad script with only one stand-out actor. Unfortunately, when you are dealing with a comedy, those two things are going to be near impossible to overcome. Really none of these characters is likable and even though Eddie does try to redeem himself, the ending is still layered with a bit too much cheese. I mean, I am a guy that likes the movie cheese piled to the ceiling, but this movie’s cheese is just too rich for my taste. After the few bites, you are like…okay, “that is enough of that”. 

One big positive is that the soundtrack is pretty glorious. The bands involved are all fairly obscure, but it if wasn’t for the soundtrack, I might have turned this movie off and never even been able to tell you how crappy it is for everything aside from the soundtrack. 

I have to give this one a 2 out of 7. I really don’t have a lot else to say, but when you have movies that are just loaded with characters that no one would root for, it’s hard to then make it relatable or funny. The “2” is for the few gags that do seem to work out okay and the soundtrack. I can’t even picture myself liking this movie when I was a teen…the target audience for this dumpster fire. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE CANON GROUP AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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