Customer Reviews

Overboard

5 star:		(89)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This movie is reminiscent of classic comedies of the 60's. Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have amazing chemistry, but so many funny moments you will laugh out loud. Goldie learning how to be a homemaker is priceless, and she does the physical comedy so well. This movie flows continuously from beginning to end. It does not lag in any part. It is a keeper, and a good addition to any collection.

No matter how many times I watch this movie (and believe me, I've watched it many, many, many times) it's always enjoyable. Goldie Hawn stars as Joanna Stayton, an incrediblly rich, incredibly bored and incredibly bitchy woman with nothing left to do while her yacht is docked at a small coastal Oregon town called Elk's Cove but to hire a carpenter named Dean Proffitt (Kurt Russell, gotta love him) to remodel her closet. But when the job isn't done to her satisfaction, he winds up overboard along with all his tools. He vows to get revenge on her and the opportunity presents itself when Joanne falls overboard in the middle of the night and is later discovered by a crew of Portuguese men on a garbage barge. But Joanna has amnesia and can't remember who she is. And her husband Grant is all to happy to pretend he doesn't know her and leave her in the hospital. But when Dean sees the "amnesia lady" on the news, he recognizes Joanna and hatches a plan to get revenge and get the money she owes him. But neither one expects to fall in love with the other. Overboard is a fun and funny movie that also teaches us the lesson that money doesn't buy us complete happiness. It can for you though if you buy Overboard because it's worth watching hundreds of times over. I love it! Enjoy!

Probably my favorite comedy movie of all time (starring Goldie Hawn & Kurt Russell), Overboard has it all!

A five star cast, hilarious dialogue, great comedic timing, and marvelous chemistry between Hawn & Russell easily adds up to more than five stars worth of fun. Supporting cast members like Roddy McDowell, Katherine Helmond, and Edward Herrmann make more than the most from their roles, and really shine. The actors who portray Mrs. Berberich, the school principal, and Dr. Korman, the psychiatrist, really do their part to add comedic punch as well.

The movie opens with Goldie Hawn as JoAnna Stayton, a bored, pampered, demanding and imperious heiress--husband Grant is an equally shallow and pompous aristocrat. They openly despise each other, treat the help like servants, are enamored with possessions over people, and are proof positive that money does not buy happiness.

Enter Kurt Russell as carpenter Dean Profitt, hired to build a new closet on the Stayton yacht. When petualnt Hawn refuses to pay him for his work and knocks him overboard, Russell vows he will make her pay. He soon gets his chance when JoAnna falls overboard herself and husband Grant is too preoccupied watching Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous (ostensibly to see if he made it onto a list of the top ten yacht owners!) to hear her cries for help and save her.

Once rescued and suffering from amnesia, JoAnna is taken to the mental ward of a local hospital where she terrorizes staff members with her fits and vicious snits. Only too glad to be rid of her, they fall for Dean Profitt's story that this is his missing wife, Annie, and he is permitted to take her "home."

The Profitt "residence" turns out to be a down-and-out homestead reminiscent of the farm from Green Acres, complete with car parts and debris all over the yard, a limping dog in a cast, and four unruly boys demolishing everything in sight. Watching Hawn acclimate to this nightmare is totally hilarious. At one point she sighs..."So, this is my life....I didn't marry very well, did I?" Too, too funny!

By movie's end, Hawn has transformed the unruly household into a happy family home, fallen in love with Russell and his children, and morphed into a real human being. A funny, funny movie with a feel good ending, Overboard is highly underrated. I urge you to watch it and share the humor!

Maybe this movie seems better than it actually is because so many other comedies haven't worked and weren't funny. In any case, this one works, and manages to be funny all the way through, when it almost doesn't seem like it should be funny at all. It's light-hearted and low-brow. A poverty-stricken carpenter is determined to get his just payment from a rich and very snobby woman, who is amnesiac after an accident, and installs her in his shabby house as his supposed wife and mother to his large brood of brats. As nasty as she was, we can't help but feel sorry for her, and perhaps we find the story uplifting because although she really does land in an awful situation, she muddles through, right on to a happy ending. Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn appear to be having a great time as the mismatched couple, and the story and humour feel fresh.

"Overboard" is a Goldie Hawn classic! "Bird on a wire" and "Overboard" are neck and neck for all time funniest Goldie Hawn flicks. Either way, "Overboard" is playfully entertaining from start to finish!

This movie is fun. I highly recommend it. Never get tired of watching it.

This twelve-year-old gem is just as funny as ever! Actually it seems even better compared to what passes for "comedy" in so many newer films. The laughs are practically non-stop in this "riches to rags" story of a kidnapped/borrowed Goldie Hawn who sobs, "I'm a short, fat, slut!" when Kurt Russell convinces her that she is his amnesia-struck, ex-navy wife with four kids.

This new DVD version is widescreen (which is why I bought it) with a crisp and sharp picture that looks like a new tranfer. There aren't a lot of extra features;however, the theatrical trailer is fun. But who cares? This is really one of the funniest movies I've ever bought. I loved it...again!

Imagine Goldie Hawn as a stuck-up millionaire boating along the coast in her yacht. She has an obnoxiously wimpy husband played by Edward Herrmann and a mother who would have been a perfect fit as Mrs. Howell on "Gilligan's Island." While she is lording over the crew she decides that she needs her closet remodeled and asks local carpenter and real-life husband Kurt Russell, playing Dean Proffitt, to do the remodeling. Kurt plays a rather down-to-earth fellow who quickly learns to dislike Joanna Stayton (Hawn) as she complains about every single detail. The encounter ends with Proffitt's tools and Proffitt himself in the ocean, and the yacht sailing away.

In a moment of movie irony Joanna falls off the yacht, hits her head and loses her memory. Initially she continues to be obnoxious until Dean Proffitt identifies her as his wife Annie Proffitt. When Proffitt initially brings Annie home she is unable to believe she ever lived in the messy, rustic Proffitt home. At first Dean and his four children almost treat Joanna/Annie almost as a slave. But as time progresses Annie slowly takes charge of Dean and the children, and Dean realizes that he is falling for Annie.

Of course we know there is a point where Annie will wake up to the fact that the tumbledown shack is not her true home and neither is she Annie Proffitt. I knew the relationship could come to no good end as long as Annie did not know the truth, and the point where she learns the truth is one of the best, though saddest, scenes in the movie. Of course there is a measure of predictability in how the movie ends, but it is all fun.

The pleasure in this movie is that it is entertaining from beginning to end. Garry Marshall, who also directed "Pretty Woman," has a knack for creating movies about characters that are just a bit larger than life, but close enough to be believable. His sense of irony and humor border on the absurd, but keep far enough away that you continue to buy the fantasy. The end result is a movie that is frequently funny and often touching, and at the end you realize you have come to like the characters and wish them well.

Also appearing are the always marvelous Hector Elizondo and Roddy McDowall, adding spice to the characters. Even the lesser known actors get a chance to provide some very funny moments, such as the Coast Guard crewmen near the end of the movie.

This movie is a popcorn winner!

Thankfully we didn't have to wait to long before a DVD release for this great comedy. Goldie Hawn is so hilarious as a rich bitch that I wish she'd take more risks like this. Kurt Russel is great and the story so warm. Great campy fun for adults and actually a good family choice.

All due respect to the previous reviewer, but this is not a "sick" film. This movie uses exageration to comic effect and to make a point...in this case to give a rude, self-involved individual her comeuppance. This type of story has been around since the dawn of story-telling.

It would have been different if Kurt had just picked up Goldie at the hospital and they'd had no previous relationship. But she'd treated him badly and so she was reaping a little of what she had sown.

The truth is that many comedies are based on confusion, conflicts, misunderstandings, direct obfuscation, and yes, someone's pain. Think of "Tootsie". Is this a sick movie because Dustin Hoffman fools people into thinking he's a woman, including Charles Durning, who wants to date him? What about "The Producers", where two men try to [...] sweet little old ladies out of their money? "Singin' in the Rain"? The leads make a fool of Lina Lamont. "Splash"? Eugene Levy winds up in a body cast. Any of the Marx Brothers movies? Poor Margaret Dumont is the confused [...] of jokes in almost all of them.

My participation in feminist issues goes back to the late 60s, so it's not like I believe a woman has to be married to be happy, but I'm also not so rigid that I get uptight every time a woman is the [...] of the joke. Besides, Goldie hardly "suffers" in this film. For a couple of days, before Kurt starts falling for her and cuts her some slack, she has to do some housework and deal with bratty kids. If that's suffering, then most every mother in the world is suffering every day.

The fact is, this is a sweet-spirited movie. The only person who really gets hurt is Grant, who deserves it. It may not be to everyone's taste, but then, I don't get Jerry Lewis movies. Different strokes for different folks.