The Wrong Guys

"The Wrong Guys" may never be as funny as one might wish it to be, but truthfully it does get by on the likability of the characters and does generate enough laughs to make it pleasant viewing. It's written by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, the guys who'd written the cult favourite low budget sci-fi item "Trancers", with Bilson also serving as director. A quintet of stand-up comedians play the main characters, Cub Scouts as children who get together as grown men for an outing. However, they will face opposition not only from their long ago bullying nemeses the Grunski brothers, but an escaped criminal psychopath (John Goodman) who mistakenly thinks them to be FBI agents. All of the main characters fit into comfortable roles tailored to their own personalities: top-billed Louie Anderson is the upbeat guy with the can-do attitude who marshals the others when it needs to be done, Tim Thomerson, a.k.a. "Jack Deth" of "Trancers" is still the surfer dude, Richard "Belz" Belzer is the sleazy womanizer, Richard Lewis the insufferable neurotic, and Franklyn Ajaye the touchy-feely radio therapist. With such a cast on hand, it's quite possible some of their best lines were improvised. Lewis's misadventures with a cot provide a highlight, while the Grunskis do battle with a nefarious squirrel and Tim and Belz attempt to hook up with some of the ladies at a nearby retreat. The top notch cast also includes Brion James and Biff Manard as the Grunskis, Ernie Hudson and Timothy Van Patten as Goodman's reluctant companions, Art La Fleur as pancake restaurant boss Woody Winslow (it's therefore noteworthy that this movie reunites him, Manard, and Thomerson as they were ALL in "Trancers"), Rita Rudner as Pam, Carole Ita White as one of the Grunski wives, Josh Saviano and Jonathan Brandis as the young Belz and Tim, Lenny Clarke as the cab driver, and Kathleen Freeman and Alice Ghostley in cameo appearances at the end. Maybe the humour is at times a little childish and silly, but nobody going into this should really expect anything more. It never really gets too unpleasant, and the cast all do a nice job; James and Manard are a hoot as the Grunskis. At least the movie doesn't go on any longer than it needs to. Six out of 10.

I saw this movie when it first came to the theaters in 1988 and though I knew it wasn't of award winning caliber...I kinda liked it. It tells the tale of 5 former cub scouts reuniting to take on the one task they never got to finish as kids - which is to climb Mt. Whitehead. Of course now the cub scouts are all grown up and have developed their personalities in a variety of ways, but none too differently than they were as children. Richard Lewis is still neurotic, Richard Belzer is still a playboy, Franklyn Ajaye is still sort of the Dear Abby of the group, and Tim Thomerson is still the surfer dude of the group. Of course the top billed star is Louie Anderson, a "true believer" in everything Cub Scout related. He still lives in the same house with his mother, still goes over the Cub Scout manual daily, is brave, reverent and clean, and is the one who reunites the others for one more grand adventure in Scouting. Compounding their task, however, is the Grunski brothers, two bullies drummed out of the Cub Scouts by the above mentioned. By coincidence they run into their old den and decide to harass them a bit, albeit harmlessly. Not so harmlessly is three escaped convicts, who think Pack 7 is from the FBI and are intent on wiping them out. All in all, the movie still has bits of charm. Observe Richard Lewis trying to get comfortable on a folding cot, for example, and you have a really funny bit going for you. Upon further review, the entire film needed more of that type of observational humor. It doesn't hold up well after all these years but still remains a guilty pleasure.

This film starts out as your basic camping comedy. Like all camping comedies it decides to ditch the simple camping going wrong and go somewhere completely different. Sort of like how the first two Meatball films turned to having a competition with the rival camp or how Ernest Goes To Camp turned to a save the camp with the delinquent kids plot. So we have the save and the rivalry. This one does do something different veering it away from crazy camping hijinks and it is a bit of a darker tone as it becomes a homicidal maniac goes after our guys cause he thinks they are FBI or something.

The story has a group of old friends from a scout troop having a reunion. This team failed their last mission, having gotten severely lost the last time they got together. Their group is made up of mainly comedians from Louis Anderson to Richard Belzar. They also have B movie mainstay Tim Thomerson. John Goodman plays the maniac who along with two other fugitives from the law goes after the troop. His character is at times to dark for the film, then at times becomes goofy as he shoots down a pancake sign. He just does not seem to know where to go and he goes everywhere.

The film itself is a somewhat funny comedy. It starts out as them having a few misadventures then turns to them trying to escape the madman. While this turn is a bit to dark at times, it adds something original to a formulaic film. It also has two guys who were kicked out of the troop still holding a grudge and these two guys have some of the funnier moments in the film. So while not an excellent comedy of the past, it does have its moments and is a bit more than your standard camping comedy.

Big fan of 80's movies and B movies. Underrated allstar cast. its clean, fun comedy suitable for the whole family. Especially entertaining was scene of cast as children. take a watch, pretty good.

No, "The Wrong Guys" isn't the funniest movie, and it may not be the most well made of films, but it is a fun movie to watch. It's stupid, good, clean fun made by a bunch of comics who clearly just wanted to do a movie together.

Given the state of movies today, this one doesn't seem all that bad by comparison. Just how many sequels to "Scary Movie" can there be anyway? And "White Chicks"??? Give me a break. Give me Richard Belzer tumbling down a mountain-side and landing on a 30 year old pack of "Fizzies" any day of the week.

The Gruntski Bros. are hilarious, and John Goodman is so over-the-top BAD that it's good. The scenes when these guys were kids are freaking outstanding: Belz sneaking up on Louie's older sister is classic.

Does it get better than "The Wrong Guys"? Sure it does. But it gets a helluva lot worse too.