Cabin Boy

Going into this movie, I thought it might get popped out of my VCR after about 15 minutes of viewing. I was not expecting to enjoy this choice my wife had made at the video store.

To my surprise, the movie is pretty funny and some of the ocean going scenes have a strong surrealistic feel to the cinematography that make the movie unique.

Chris Elliot's sun-induced bout of hallucinations alone is worth the price to rent this movie.

I recently found this DVD in the bargin bin at WalMart and couldn't have been more pleased with the discovery. I first saw it in 1995 and scenes and dialouge from the movie have been stuck in my mind ever since. This movie is absolute fun with a smart and hyperbolic humor that is far removed from the flatulence jokes of most recent Hollywood junk. The movie is intentionally what it is, the acting, the jokes and the situations, the combination of which makes it artfully hilarious. This movie is in no way intended to be the best movie ever made and so those who have commented that it is the worst movie ever made have completely missed the point. The worst movies ever made are those which ascribe to and are promoted as being on a level that they fall painfully short of, a recent example being God's and Generals. One should expect painful and unique silliness from Chris Elliot, which is what the movie delievers. I agree with those who write that this movie will be better appreciated in times to come.

A reviewer below compared Chris Elliot to Andy Kaufman, and I don't think he knew how close that analogy really fits. Elliot is like Kaufman in alot of ways. Some people never really understood Kaufman's peculiar brand of performance, and from the looks of the reviews below, there are plenty of people who don't get Elliot. It was not always the *content* of Kaufman's performance that made you laugh, it was the fact that he was doing it in the first place. For those that saw "Man on the Moon", think about the Gatsby reading. It wasn't funny for an audience member at that Kaufman appearance to hear all of Gatsby being read, even LONG after the joke of doing it wore out. But paradoxically, if he hadn't done so it wouldn't have been as funny. What's funny is that he had the gumption to go ahead and finish the entire work, regardless of what the effect on his audience was.

Likewise, not everything that Elliot does is gut-busting hilarious. For those of us who like his work, it's the absurdity of what he did that counts. If you've seen Elliots short-lived TV series "Get a Life", than the perversely surrealistic scenery of "Cabin Boy" makes more sense. It's supposed to make the viewer feel like there is no normalcy to be found. I'm not claiming this was some great artistic acheivement, it's simply a good way to facilitate Elliot's brand of comedy. There was no comfortable, sane baseline in "Get a Life" to which characters could return, not even a basic continuity of plot between episodes (such as what characters are still alive.) Likewise, "Cabin Boy" is simply a string of absurd situations that when taken separately are not really "hilarious" in that sense. But taken as a totality, a fan of Elliot's humor appreciates the quirky nature of the film as a whole.

I say this not to convince those who don't like Elliot, only to justify the opinions of those of us who do in the face of people who simply write this film off as "horrible." In terms of quality, the TV series was Elliot's best work, but this film definitely has some appeal to some people. There really is a "cult" sort of following for this film, becuase some of us are sick of the cookie-cutter comedies that get churned out these days.

I've been a Chris Elliot fan since watching him on his old television series "Get a Life." I think he is the precursor to comedians such as Tom Green, and the modern gross-out comedy. The image of Elliot licking the boat with soapy water comes to mind.

Lots of people would label this movie as one of the worst movies of all time, but it's consciously absurd (or "wacky" as Christ Elliot's character might say). "Worst" movies are ones that think they are legit, like The Order, or Batman and Robin.

That being said, Cabin Boy is not the best comedy of all time. The crazy-funny parts are laugh out loud funny, but spread too far apart. I think this movie should have been wall-to-wall laughs. But it's worth it for the good parts, and Chris Elliot deserves our attention.

Watch some night alongside Freddy Got Fingered and Clifford.

While a number of critics have discussed at length "Cabin Boy"'s allusions to earlier sea epics, such as "Mutiny on the Bounty", "Moby Dick" and "Humanoids of the Deep", surprisingly little attention has been devoted to it's social commentary. Although it may, perhaps, be an overstatement to call Chris Elliot's script "revolutionary", its message has a decidedly socialist bent. In fact, I would venture to say that none of Elliot's other work, prior to OR since "Cabin Boy" has had a comparable impact on the way ship captains treat their crew - or for that matter, on the labor movement in general in this country. It's safe to say that the success of "Cabin Boy" is a product not only of Elliot's vision, but also a fortunate case of being "the right film at the right time", so to speak.

Additionally, the cast must be credited. Brian Doyle-Murray, Russ Tamblyn and many others give the performances of their careers. The stand-out, of course, was Ritch Brinkley in a magnificent portrayal of Captain Greybar, captain of "The Filthy Whore." Far from the stereotypical old salt sea captain, Brinkley's Greybar is hard, harsh, irritable and irrascible, and yet even-handed and even sensitive, giving a textured character which is so clearly missing from many other sea films. Particularly touching is the scene when Elliot's character, Nathanial Mayweather, serves "fish-stick kitties" for the crew's lunch. Words cannot describe the emotion that Brinkley's face conveys. It's so touching because it's true!

While "Cabin Boy" has its flaws, I have no doubt that it will be greatly appreciated by landlubbers and sea captains alike, particularly those who, like myself, started their careers as lowly cabin boys.