MOVING (1988)

MOVING (1988)

Tagline: On the New Jersey Turnpike, no one can hear you scream.

(Comedy, Business, Moving Almost Always Sucks) [R]

I'm going to kill you. Do you hear me? So you got about an hour to get out of town before I find a gun, I load it with eight bullets and I kill all crazy-eight of you son of a b-----s! Now, please go. I don't want to go to jail. Please!

In this one, Arlo Pear gets fired from his job as a transit engineer but lands what sounds like a dream job in Boise, Idaho. His efforts to find a house in Idaho, movers for his stuff, and a person to drive his car across the country from New Jersey prove to be a challenge that eventually sends Arlo over the edge. 

First off, I am one of those people that really didn’t love standup comedy growing up especially where there was just a ton of profanity involved, so that keeps me from embracing a lot of comedians I otherwise think are pretty funny. It’s just not my thing. However, Richard Pryor (who plays Arlo in this) had some fantastic movies and some are really comedy gold. This is one of those and in spite of the numerous cameos, Pryor really carries most of this film by himself. 

This is one of those “what the cow” flicks in the sense that the incredible amount of things that go wrong in its 89-minute run time. I already don’t like moving, but this movie made it look like the stuff of nightmares and before cell phones, a lot of the time it wasn’t like getting answers 24/7 was a thing. If someone was driving something of yours across the country, you might not hear from them until they showed up at the destination. Arlo is able to get in touch with his movers, but if this was real, my distrust must have been through the roof. All of this is handled hilariously and the storyline definitely embraces the disturbingly things that could go wrong if every from the bankers to the movers to the company you decided to work for were all shady as heck. 

I grew up in the 80s and never even heard of this movie. So it was equally shocking to find out how many stars actually show up in this thing. Stacey Dash (CLUELESS) shows up as Arlo’s daughter Casey Pear and does a pretty good job. I will say that she pretty much plays exactly the same strong but confrontational character in CLUELESS. Dave Thomas (RAT RACE) plays Gary Marcus, Arlo’s new boss. He isn’t given a ton of screen time, but he’s good in the role. Randy Quaid (NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION) plays Frank who is one of the biggest jerks I have seen in a comedy in a long time. Man, I cannot stand his character. Dana Carvey plays a dude with multiple personalities in this. It’s pretty crazy, but he nails it. Having said that, if you want Carvey’s best performance though, you still have to go to (WAYNE’S WORLD). Then the last big cameo is by Rodney Dangerfield (BACK TO SCHOOL) who plays a banker who just embezzles money like an eight-armed soft pretzel thief. 

Overall this movie is pretty funny, and seeing Arlo take things into his own hands against all these jerks is absolutely wonderful. Having said that, this one kind of reminds me of MONEY PIT (shot 2 years earlier) where things go so badly that I almost wanted to turn the movie off just because it was projecting waves of “what if this was real” into my soul. If that doesn’t happen to you watching flicks like then, then you should have a great time

MOVING gets a 4 out of 7. I could have done without some of the brash dialog.
 

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