Customer Reviews

Hard Four

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Ed Asner, Dabney Coleman, Ed Begley and Bryan Cranston in one movie? What could be bad? It's a total romp. A screwball comedy like the ones I love on TCM. There is a nutty intricate plot that compels without causing one to work too hard. The hi-jinx that ensues makes the ride well worth taking because it's so much fun. Every nutty type is on display and the setting in Las Vegas is perfect for the proceedings. Highly recommended!

You've got to love a movie where Dabney Coleman plays a character named Spray Loomis, a former lounge singer who's now a greeter in the Las Vegas morgue and "lucky to have the job". And Ed Asner - who deserves his own dictionary entry for irascibility - plays Golden Hands Segal, a veteran high roller, who ends up identified incorrectly by Coleman setting off an unfortunate chain of events. Mitzi McCall plays Asner's feisty widow, who postpones her grief to take on casino boss Ian Abercrombie, who won't pay out for the hard four her husband threw at the craps table and which caused his serio-comic demise. And while all this is going on, Asner's grandson, Samuel Gould, accompanied by best friend Ross Benjamin struggle to reach Las Vegas accompanied by uber-cougar Charlene Blaine and her demented Greek boyfriend Charles Dennis to fly Asner's body home to New Jersey for burial. And did I mention Ed Begley Jr. is running for governor of California? And Rachelle Carson Begley and John Getz are the funniest cheating couple in recent memory indulging in unprecedented football sex. Bryan Cranston plays the Vegas cop leading the investigation surrounding Asner's missing body? His "Lower your weapon to the ground" routine will reverberate long after the movie's over. And Paula Prentiss and Willie Garson amusingly bicker away at each other while Fayard Nicholas defines "catamite" in no uncertain terms. And it took two viewings to realize one actor - the hysterically funny Richard Horvitz - was playing Jay and Sheldon, "the famous Goldstein twins from Chicago." It's all a laugh-a-minute romp in the style of classic Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder movies. Don't miss it!