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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
"Augie, we've been in college for eight years...we're not qualified to do anything!", July 13, 2006
Here are some of the taglines for the film Fast Food (1989)...
`Home of the best burgers and thighs in town.'
`The secret's in the sauce.'
`A movie with no nutritional value.'
I contend had the makers of this film spent half as much effort on the feature as they did coming up with oh so clever taglines for the movie, it might have been a worthwhile experience...produced and directed by Michael A. Simpson (Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland), the film stars former Tiger Beat cover boy regular Clark Brandon (My Tutor, "The Facts of Life"), along with Randal Patrick (Funland), Tracy Griffith (Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, The First Power), and the late Jim `Hey Vern!' Varney (Ernest Goes to Camp, Ernest Goes to Jail). Also appearing is Michael J. Pollard (Bonnie and Clyde, Roxanne), Blake Clark (Little Nicky, 50 First Dates), former adult film star Traci Lords (Cry-Baby), Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, UHF), and Pamela Springsteen (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers), younger sister of musician Bruce Springsteen.
The movie begins with a shot of a western themed burger joint and some vague, forgettable, garden variety 1980s rock. Soon we see an overweight delivery guy dressed like a cowboy climbing onto a moped rigged up to look like a cow (this is about as good as it gets, in as far as the comedy within this film), making a delivery to the local college, specifically a frat party hosted by Augustus `Augie' Hamilton (Brandon), sporting a spectacular 80s mullet, and his pal Drew (Patrick), who appears to all of about 35 years of age. After the pair gets busted by the dean (not only were they hosting a casino night, but Augie got caught messing around with the dean's daughter), they get kicked out of school and are forced to try and find jobs. Seems Drew's cousin Samantha (Griffith), Sam for short, operates a nearby gas station, a location coveted by Wrangler Bob (Varney) as he wants to build one of his burger joints on the site (the same type of place we saw at the beginning of the movie). Due to financial troubles Sam is willing to sell, but Augie talks her into opening their own fast food restaurant (with a gas station theme no less), which they do, but business is lousy (apparently food cooked in a greasy, grimy gas station isn't as appetizing as it sounds) and things are looking bleak. Needing an edge, Augie hits up a nerdy college friend for help, procuring a powerful, experimental aphrodisiac called Formula 9 and puts it into the secret sauce, unbeknownst to his colleagues. As you can imagine, business picks up, forcing Wrangler Bob to play hardball, eventually bringing in an industrial spy played by Lords. Once Wrangler Bob learns of what's going on, he rats Augie and his partners out to the FDA, who promptly shut the place down pending a hearing...actually, Wrangler Bob could have just called the local health department as I gotta figure selling food out of an old, dilapidated filling station is probably pretty unsanitary, especially with Michael J. Pollard manning the grill...will Augie come up with a plan to save the day? By this point I didn't really care...
This movie ran just under an hour and a half and during that whole time I didn't laugh once...not even a chuckle, guffaw, titter, snicker, chortle, hee-haw, tee hee, or chortle...and it's not that I'm a humorless, uptight movie snob (as dumb as some of Varney's various Ernest movies are, I still find them funny), but only because the film was completely devoid of any comedic material (keep in mind I set my expectations seriously low on the outset)...and another thing, when part of your plot involves spiking food with a super powerful aphrodisiac in order to increase business, a certain amount of nekkidness is expected, of which there was none...so what are your left with? Not much, I'll tell you what...at one point in the movie Augie and his partners are hired to cater a stuffy sorority party and after Augie brings out the secret sauce there's a glimmer of hope as an impromptu wet t-shirt contest is initiated, but get this, we never get to the actual wetting of any t-shirts...the women are lined up on stage, donning t-shirts, and there's a guy with a seltzer bottle, but nothing, nada, zilch, leaving the audience hanging...Ms. Lords is prominently displayed on the cover of the DVD, both in name and image, but she has a meager part that included, at most, ten minute of screen time and hardly any skin (she does appear in her underwear), which wasn't surprising given at the time she was trying to move away from her `adult' roots into more mainstream roles (i.e. ones where she wouldn't be expected to doff her clothes). About the only thing this film has going for it are a few recognizable faces, many of whom I doubt list this feature prominently on their resumes. Michael J. Pollard appears as a gas station attendant/fry cook, bumbling around and just appearing mentally challenged in general and Kevin McCarthy shows up near the end as a judge...I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the latter since I thought he deserved slightly better than this...Varney comes across poorly (more because of the miserable script than any fault of his own), indicating perhaps he should have stuck to his Ernest films. As far as the stars, Clark Brandon, whose teen idol status, in his heyday, I'd rank somewhere just below that of a Willie Ames, comes across as a smarmy, annoying, twerpy, misogynistic dink with sleazy tendencies, and Tracy Griffith, while definitely cute, flounders about as her character is written as so to be in perpetual spaz mode. Every other scene she seems to be throwing a hissy fit as Brandon's character continually abuses their partnership by making all the decisions, relegating Samantha to more menial tasks. All in all if you're in the mood for a bland, boring, soulless movie with no laughs posing as a teen type comedy, this will definitely fit the bill, but I'd suggest beating yourself about the noggin with a ball peen hammer or getting kicked repeatedly in the gonasticles as I'm sure either activity would be infinitely more enjoyable.
The back of the DVD case claims the film was mastered from the best, available source, which given the quality of the picture I took to mean a used VHS tape. The picture, in fullscreen, is slightly murky and even features what appears to be a couple of tracking glitches normally found on well worn VHS tapes. The audio isn't much better...it starts out strong, but then develops an uneven pattern as the movie progresses. There are no extra features included, but there are some chapter stops (six, to be exact), for what it's worth.
Cookieman108
By the way, I rarely give out one star ratings as I can usually find at least one redeeming factor in most all of the movies I watch, but that wasn't the case here...
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