Oscar (1991, John Landis)

53/100

Something I assumed about Oscar: Sylvester Stallone plays a character named Oscar. (Oscar doesn't show up until 40 seconds before The End.)

Something else I assumed about Oscar: Stallone hangs Harold Lloyd–style from a clockface at some point. (He does not, nor does anyone else.)

Something I did not assume about Oscar: It's adapted from a French farce first performed onstage in 1958 and previously filmed in 1967.

True farce (as opposed to just the vaguely farcical) is a curious animal. On the one hand, it's arguably the hardest comedic form to triumphantly pull off—the timing has to be impeccable, sustained at a pace and for a duration that runs actors ragged. (In a filmed farce, of course, this is to some degree the editor's job. I'll get to that.) At the same time, though, it's hard to completely botch a good farce, because the foundation's so darn sturdy. Even when it drags, as Oscar all too frequently does, the broadly clever plot mechanisms still land. And there are actors here equal to the task: Peter Riegert can do snappy repartee with no visible effort; Martin Ferrero (best known for getting outhouse-chomped in Jurassic Park) and Harry Shearer make a fine team of fussy Italian tailors; you can kinda see that Chazz Palminteri and Marisa Tomei, who were both still a year or two away from their breakout roles, have strong comedic chops; hell, I even quite liked Vincent Spano here, and that might be a first. (Being naturalistic for Sayles didn't come easy to him, but a clockwork caricature he can do.) Obviously, the biggest liability is Stallone, though he tries hard and by no means embarrasses himself. He just wasn't blessed with the nimble, quicksilver sensibility that his role demands, and keeps throwing the timing slightly off.

That sort of thing can be hard to pinpoint on film, but there's one moment here that leapt out at me, which I'll assume is representative of what makes Oscar sometimes play like the equivalent of a soft drink that's gone just a bit flat (but is still drinkable). It's not a particularly good joke—and indeed, little of what's funny, at least in this English-language version, derives from dialogue. What sings is stuff like confusion over several identical bags (as also seen in What's Up, Doc?; not sure how far back that particular bit goes, probably centuries), and Anthony having his belief that the tailors are hit men reinforced when they proudly show him a photo of their work: some mobster who was stabbed in the back while wearing one of their suits. (That we'd previously seen them show that photo to Snaps, but failed to recognize it as a setup, gives it more juice.) Best line's probably Snaps telling his daughter "You've gotta cross the finish line on this one, he's your third fiancé and it's not even lunch yet," which Stallone nearly kills via too much growling and grimacing, though Tomei more or less saves it with an exaggerated naughty wink in response.

Anyway, back to sluggish timing. Kurtwood Smith plays a police lieutenant who's watching Snaps' mansion from an apartment across the street. Richard Romanus plays a rival gangster who's closely following events from across town. At one point Smith, looking through binoculars, tells his men, "It's too much activity. Snaps is up to somethin'," and we immediately cut to Romanus, who says "It's too quiet. Provolone is up to somethin.'" Again, not brilliant, but it works...or it would have worked, except that Landis and his soon-to-be regular editor, Dale Beldin (who has zero notable credits with anyone other than Landis), inexplicably and idiotically throw in a reaction shot from one of the gangster's henchmen in between "It's too quiet" and "Provolone is up to somethin'." That only delays the "punchline" (such as it is—the doubling, let's say) by one second or so, but in comedy as in racing, fractions of a second matter. That nobody involved with Oscar understood why that was deadly clarifies why so much of the film lags.

So my main takeaway from Oscar (1991, John Landis) is that I should watch Oscar (1967, Edouard Molinaro) at some point, as that version will almost certainly include every aspect of the former that I enjoyed while hopefully avoiding most aspects that hampered it. Still, I'm not sorry to have experienced a killer ensemble—haven't even mentioned Ornella Muti, Eddie Bracken, or freakin' Tim Curry, who's hilarious opposite Tomei—attempt to pull this sucker off, despite the miscast lead actor, inept editor and somehow-not-in-jail-(that's-actual-jail-not-movie-jail) director.