Nothing But Trouble

Saw Nothing But Trouble, a strange film from the comedy-rich era of the late 80s/early 90s. It stars John Candy and Dan Aykroyd in almost every role. Dan is a big important businessman from New York city who gets stranded in the boonies by a back-woods petty tyrant judge. There he tries to avoid various means of execution and also save The Girl (there's a girl along for the ride.) Also along for the ride is an affected and Brazilian, rich, brother-sister duo who are just depressing. Their one shtick is that they're stupid and have accents and I guess that was once considered high comedy.

The film is a lumpy, disjointed mess. It introduces entirely new and important characters half an hour from the end and intersperses b-plots and side-stories at random. A henchman decides he's had enough and is going to leave the judge's compound but is only shown packing his bags half an hour later. Prosthetics are used heavily and I believe are supposed to make everyone look hilariously disgusting but only makes them look disgusting. There's a lot of tired, joke-like material here as well. John Candy dresses in drag to become an unacceptably fat woman (fat women... am I right, fellas?) who the main character must marry (whuh oh!) The evil judge's nose is transformed into a penis (twice! Neither time funny!) A passel of black dudes is produced only for the sake of a musical interlude. I imagine they had some kind of contract or something. It's just a random stab at relevancy via hip-hop. So it fails as a comedy for me. However, it's not a totally awful waste of time. It has no good comedy, plot, or character, this is true. But it does have one great strength: set design.

The judge's compound is on a junk yard and the judge is supposed to be some kind of engineering genius and his house is amazing. Little trap doors, revolving walls, conveyer belts and rickety gears are everywhere. Collections of books and clocks clog the hallways as well as children's toys and dolls. What happens in front of these tableaux is almost entirely tedious but the sets themselves are beautifully creepy. Fussily Victorian and overcrowded, brutal and cartoonish when they need to be, everything is a fascinating mess. If I'd seen this as a child, I'd have wanted to live in the judge's house (side note: I did actually see a glimpse of this as a child. Scared the hell out of me.) So the film's one redeeming feature is the fun-house through which the characters run. This should not be considered a glowing endorsement. See this movie only if you're already a fan of the dumb 80s comedy. It has a nice house, but the occupants are boring and unpleasant.