The Money Pit

I loved this movie. Granted, I was a teen when I first saw it, but even so, I laughed often and that is my standard of judgment. Shelley Long is as good as she was in Cheers (which is gooood). Tom Hanks shows off the early "Bosom Buddies" hopes of physical comedy genius here in a way that he never did again. The bee-attack scene to the flight of the Bumblebee violin solo is fabulous. the whole "We're Sitting on a Dream" sequence with the stairs and doorbell and raccoon and the bathtub is hilarious but PEOPLE. Come on. The entire collapsing stairs bit is the best, capped off by Hanks sweet little blown kiss at the end ... slayed me. My brother and I still reference it whenever everything is more crap than bearable, and we always will. I think this is an overlooked gem and will always have it in my video catalogue. Finally, a quote: Paint. Don't tickle. Alexander Gudonow will be missed.

Tom Hanks and Shelley Long star in this hilarious film about a couple who buy a million dollar home for $200,000 - only to find out it's going to cost close to a million to repair it! Wood rot, raccoons in the dumbwaiter, a bad roof, bad plumbing, bad electricity - you name it, this house has it. Hard to choose the funniest scene - the staircase collapse or Hanks getting dumped in cement.

The entire cast is excellent, from Maureen Stapleton, the former homeowner whose boyfriend is being deported, Hanks' clients (he's an entertainment attorney), the many workers who populate the house, or Douglass Watson, Hanks' embezzler father who now lives in Rio.

It would also be hard to choose the funniest line, but for anyone who has owned a home, probably the Shirks Brothers line when their team comes to repair the house - "Your name came up in a drawing - we work today!"

It continually amazes me that Tom hanks will go down as one of the best dramatic actors of our generation and little will be spoken of how good a physical comedian he was before "Philadelphia" changed his career. Hanks made a string of movies in the 80s relying on his physical comedy ability, most notable "Big", "the burbs", "dragnet", "turner & hooch" etc. But I think that with the POSSIBLE exception of "Big" - "The Money Pit" is his best. Some of the scenes involving Hanks in this movie made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe. This movie is intended to be a farce and it succeeds totally. The rest of the cast is not very strong - I have never, and I assume never will be, a Shelley Long fan - she doesn't do anything but provide a sounding board for Hanks anyway. But then again, she really doesn't need to.

This movie is definitely worth taking a look at if you haven't seen it - the first time you watch it, it is genuinely hilarious. I just watched it again after about three years without seeing it and found it to still hold up. The scene when the chimney falls apart is my favorite. I wish hanks would do another comedy, but he's all serious now. oh well.

Some people call this Tom Hanks' worst film. Nope, it was just completely ridiculous to the point that the viewer is supposed to know this kind of thing could never happen on this scale and just laugh, because we've all had these kinds of things happen on a much smaller scale.

Tom Hanks and Shelley Long play a couple who have recently fallen in love and have been living in her ex-husband's New York City apartment and not thinking ahead. But then one day the ex-husband, Max (Alexander Godunov), returns and they have to leave.

In a hurry to find a place to live, they buy a house for a song that looks beautiful through a disreputable agent. Although they looked at the house - never had an actual inspection mind you - and everything looked okay, things begin to fall apart the day that they move in. The front door and its entire frame fall off its hinges, the bad step on the staircase ends up with the entire stairway crashing to the floor, the bathtub falls through the floor just by filling it with water, and so on. The problems and their cost mount to the point of being way past ridiculous, and as goes the house so goes the relationship between Hanks and Long. To make matters worse, Max really wants his ex-wife back and is taking advantage of her vulnerability and deteriorating mental state.

The fact is, nobody in this film but Hanks and Long play remotely likable characters. Everybody else is at best selfish and vain or incompetent, at worse dishonest, including Hanks' dad who ran off and left with his law firm's money so he could marry a girl about one third his age, leaving Hanks' character holding the bag.

How will this all work out? Watch and find out. This was the only pairing of Shelley Long with Tom Hanks, and it is rather bittersweet in a kind of "A Star is Born" way, looking back. Tom Hanks had not been able to break out of farce like comedy roles such as this yet will end up getting back to back Best Actor Oscars. Long thought that this role was a stepping stone to better things after she decided to leave Cheers the following year, but she never got anything that really rose above this kind of role and was pretty much out of the movies by 1992.

Highlights of the film for me - Gudonov's monologue to Hanks on the perks of being shallow and self-centered, a mouse-trap like chain reaction joke of physical comedy involving Hanks that has to be seen to be believed, and Philip Bosco as the genial and useless supervisor of the construction crew who is all smiles and has only one answer to how long it will take to fix the house - "two weeks".

The Money Pit (1986) was very early on in tom hanks's Hollywood career, and I'm so glad he decided to do it! Him and Shelley Long that is. I mean this is just a classic to me. From both Long and Hanks's very talented comedic performances to the funny script and some of the best physical comedy I've ever seen done. Tom hanks can play very serious roles in dramatic movies, exhibit A: Forrest Gump, and he is very good at it, but he also is very gifted comedic actor too. He has a lot of great moments that he just delivers the lines in such a way where it works and will have you busting out laughing. Shelley Long is good here, has some very funny scenes, she has some humor that's not very obvious such as slapstick, but it works very well and the two of them have very natural romantic on screen chemistry. They are believable as a couple. I hate it when filmmakers cast romantic leads that have absolutely zero natural chemistry between them. It just makes for awkward interaction and a poor couple. Tbankfully they avoided that with this movie. The movie has some quality physical slapstick style comedy while the house is being worked on, and it for the most part works. The movie isn't the best comedy or 80's movie you'll ever see, but it's cute at times, very funny, and well acted. I suggest it.