Eat and Run

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...

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.

I liked this movie a lot. It was on TV several times when I was younger. Ron Silver narrates out loud to himself during the movie and other characters occasional complain and ask him to stop. He also refers to his girlfriend, the judge, as "your honor darling". I've been trying to find this movie again for several years, I'll probably have to try to get a bootleg from ebay. It's cheesy etc., but has some very funny moments and ideas. I think calling it an airplane rip-off is inaccurate.

I saw this on late night TV when I was about 14, and it made quite an impression on me because it was weird and gross. In fact, an unhealthy interest in cannibalism may have sprung from this movie. As well as my dramatic weight increase over the last decade. Anyway, I liked the film a lot at the time, despite the fact I could hardly hear it, because I had the TV volume incredibly low, as I was scared that some pornographic or blood-bakingly horrific sound would wake my parents up and have them tumbling down the stairs, at which point they'd see that their innocent kid was watching a film about a fat cannibal from outer space. The film struck me as much more of a horror than a comedy. I could see dark humour, for sure, but it seemed pretty horrific. I'm not crazy about seeing it again. I don't have a desperate need to track it down, as I'm sure it wasn't really that good. Instead, I'll stick with my memory of an interesting and grotesque concept. If I make a film with a cannibalism theme some time in the future, I may owe a debt of thanks to this oddity.

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