Eat and Run

Too funny! This movie is _way_ underrated. C'mon people! 3.2???? Have a heart (and a funnybone).

The piano music that the detectives dad played coming as muzak finally had me laughing out loud. Too MUCH! I was still playing over and over in my mind the mime that was going for help by RUNNING IN PLACE! I was crying laughing when the mime put his elbow on the imaginary support and she was like "Don't just stand there! Go get help!" I feel for the actual real life actor who played the part of the alien eater and know his health can't be good. I have a friend that is almost as large yet eats like a bird, so I really feel empathy for the big guy.

Anyway, a perfect movie at 3am after watching "Mr. Brooks" and "The Island", it sorta broke the somber mood and I was able to go to bed in light spirits.

I would just like to comment that this movie scared the everloving bejeezus out of me when i was a child. Seriously, to the point where if i saw even the box sitting on a shelf in the video rental store i would start panicing as if the walls were closing in on me. All i ever remember of this movie is the very first scene where the fat guy eats a roadside hot dog vendor. I distincivly remember the victum's eye-view being the last shot of that scene. So a word of advice, don't let your children watch this. I grew up to be a pretty skinny guy and i won't set aside the fact that this movie may take some of the blame...

Having captured a humanoid alien who had been feasting on Italian immigrants, a jaded American police detective is surprised to find that the law actually is not on his side in this quirky comedy with more to it than meets the eye. Yes, the premise is incredibly silly, however, while the film initially just seems to be a series of devouring scenes, things become very interesting once the alien is captured as he is treated with all the legal rights afforded to human beings. As the cop in question, Ron Silver gives some hilarious deadpan reactions as he is told by a psychiatrist that the alien is "cured (and) no longer a threat" since he now understands that what he did was wrong! Also, apparently carbon dating has proved that the alien is child in the eyes of the law, so he needs to be treated like a minor! The film does not explore all of this as deeply as it could (is he is old enough to make his own decisions about what he does in bed?) but either way, such thoughtfulness is both surprising and refreshing in such an ostensibly frivolous film like this and it more than makes up for the fact that several gags backfire (the short order cook who keeps deep frying his possessions is absolutely groan-inducing). That said, most of the humour does in fact work. Silver's penchant for narrating his life in third person is an especially good touch with lots of funny moments as other characters ask him what on earth he is doing. The constant cutting between his boss eating and obsessing with food (cake layers) and the alien devouring Italians adds some unexpected humour too.

Man, this is by no means as bad as eighties crappy comedies like 91/2 ninjas, but it's not so hilarious as it thinks it is either.

An alien (played by a giant actor who is sadly no longer with us) lands on Earth and immediately starts chowing down on the Italian populace of New York, because, you know, Italian food tastes the best (except curry).

It's all down to cop Ron Silver to bring down the alien, with one complication, the judge he's banging (badly) turns out to be Italian, but she's also going easy on criminals and lets the alien go and also falls in love with him, but what happens when the alien finds out she's Italian.

Full of many, many failed gags, Eat and Run almost works due to Silver's constant narrating of the plot to himself and others (which works very well when he meets his dad, who does the same thing). A lot of bad jokes too, however, as it's going for a kind of Airplane type atmos but doesn't quite make it. Ron Silver ain't with us anymore either. That's depresses me. Can actors from the eighties stop dying please? It's not a film I would have tracked down hadn't I purchased it and 25 other dvds for £3 at Polmadie Car Boot Sale...

Ah, the wasted potential in this Christopher Hart (a man truly well-known for his hands-- portrayer of Thing in the Addams Family films, Lefty in Quicksilver Highway, The Hands in Idle Hands... you get the idea)-directed Airplane! wannabe. Ron Silver (many, many TV films) plays a bumbling cop with a liberal-judge girlfriend (veteran soap chanteuse Sharon Schlarth) assigned to track down a serial killer of Italians who's known for leaving no traces except the buttons of the shirts of his victims. Turns out the killer is actually an alien, Murray Creature (R. L. "Pat" Ryan, best known for a brief association with Troma Films), who upon crash-landing on Earth was picked up by a sausage vendor and developed a taste for, shall we say, Italian food. Sight gags abound and there's some great wordplay between Ron Silver and his brother Robert, who plays an informant, but this movie would be immeasurably better had they at least tried to do something that hadn't already been done in a slew of Leslie Nielsen films. * 1/2