Walk Like a Man

Reading over the other comments for "Walk like a man," almost every positive comment is associated with childhood memories of this film. I never saw it as a child. I just watch it recently (on TV). This is a predictable, sappy and tiresome movie, with bland slap-stick humour and simple jokes. It wouldn't surprise me if children enjoyed this movie giving rise to fond memories, but adults wont come away with anything positive.

"Walk like a man" is a comedy about a man, named Bobo (Howie Mandel), who, raised by wolves for 28 years, is found and brought back to live with his brother, Reggie (Christopher Lloyd). Bobo is trained to be more civilized by a scientist named Penny, the woman who found him, while his brother plots a method to get at Bobo's half of their father's inheritance. Bobo acts like a wolf for most of the picture and causes mayhem pretty well everywhere he goes which quickly gets boring. Bobo goes to the country club. Will he cause trouble? Bobo goes to the lawyer. Will he cause trouble? Bobo attends a dinner party. Will he cause trouble? The movie even starts to play on its own predictable routine.

There wasn't a moment in this film where I laughed. I couldn't get passed the boring routine and how everything happens for predictable laughs. Despite being a satire on "Tarzan," that lack of any laughs made the unrealistic events stand out where a good comedy should've let me look beyond them. The subplots, such as Bobo constantly ruining the neighbours cement driveway and a love story between Bobo and Penny, just aren't funny, nor touching, nor interesting. "Walk like a man" is a dull comedy worth skipping (even on TV).

"Walk Like A Man" has a special place in my heart, but not because it's a great (or even good, really) piece of cinema. It's just one of those films that you grow up seeing on HBO as a child every afternoon and, to a fat kid that didn't get out much, that's great entertainment. It's silly, sappy and, like most proper 80's flicks, would probably only be about 45 minutes long if you took out all of the "musical montages". I am not even going to bother with a plot summary-you wouldn't be reading this if you have not already seen the film. But I will say this: while watching it again recently as an adult who has graduated to the more sophisticated likes of Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman, I was shocked by how much I still enjoyed it! The cast is very funny and entertaining and they gamely tackle the silly material they are given. I especially liked the underrated Christopher Lloyd as the evil older brother and Colleen Camp as his lush of a wife. I don't know, maybe it's just the connotation of the film and the fond childhood memories of watching it that come with it, but continental tastes be damned-I like this lousy little film!

Walk Like a Man isn't Man for All Seasons or Return of the King or Philadelphia, but it's a pleasant diversion. It helps to be half brain-dead to watch it - kind of a tired Friday night film.

Howie Mandel is amazingly physical as a boy raised by wolves. It is believable that his subsequent chronic back problems emanated from tearing around on a leash, sitting on people's heads, eating sloppily at a formal dinner, chasing fire trucks, sniffing crotches and scrambling over objects. Bobo is innocent, spontaneous and good. Cloris Leachman is perfect as Bobo's not quite there mother. Watching them try to learn puzzles together or howl together is enchanting - a real apple:tree connection.

This is not a deathless movie, but it has some fine laugh out loud moments. It's hard to believe that Howie Mandel isn't part wolf.

Seriously. This movie was absolutely horrible. I knew I was in for a real treat (yes, that's extreme sarcasm) when I started rolling my eyes 2 minutes after it started and the young Bobo whines, "Have a heart, Pa, it's cold!" Yes. Because when I was 5, I always walked around telling my parents to "have a heart."

The dialogue, the situations the characters get themselves into, and, of course, the unrelentingly terrible plot are all beyond clichéd and very ridiculous. Don't even get me started on the acting. I see that Howie Mandel's shilling for Boston Pizza now. I can't decide where his acting is worse, in that or in this.

Bah. I don't even want to review this anymore, it's just making me relive a painful two hours that I just want to forget.

I'm going to go scrub my eyes with soap now.

Don't even watch this if it's on T.V., check out something more intellectually and visually stimulating. Like an infomercial.

If there was a more annoying performer in the 1980s than Howie Mandel I sure do not remember him. This time Mandel is a young man who has been raised by a pack of wolves after he was accidentally left behind during a camping trip when he was a very young boy. He is found by animal researcher Amy Steel and she tries to teach him the ways of humans that he has been away from. Naturally he reunites with his mother (Cloris Leachman) and his demented older brother (Christopher Lloyd). Lloyd tries and tries to keep Mandel from getting half of his elderly mother's inheritance while Mandel is totally oblivious to what is going on and what is expected of him. Soon Lloyd decides it will be easier to skip all the legalities and just have Mandel killed instead. Comedy that is just not funny here. Mandel tries to dominate the action, and does, but the movie is a smelly dog from top to bottom. This is a total waste of film and effort (what little was put in). One of the many downers of the mid-1980s. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).