Product Details

• Actors: Peter Riegert, Chazz Palminteri, Joey Travolta, Paul Greco, Sylvester Stallone
• Directors: John Landis
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English, Italian
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Touchstone / Disney
• VHS Release Date: April 21, 1994
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302156815
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,338 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  #12 in	Video > Comedy > Comedy Directors > John Landis
  #85 in	Video > Mystery & Suspense > Crime > Gangsters

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Oscar was Sylvester Stallone's agreeable, 1991 effort at broad comedy, a fast-talking, suspender-snapping gangster farce featuring the Rambo star as a 1930s Chicago mob boss, Snaps Provolone, trying to go straight during overlapping personal crises. No, this isn't Billy Wilder, but director John Landis (Coming to America) has crackling fun with Oscar's fruit salad of traditional comic themes and tools, including mistaken identities, a powerful man's weakness for his children, and a nonstop parade of outre secondary characters. The cast includes Kirk Douglas as Stallone's father, whose deathbed wish compels Snaps to go into legitimate banking at the exact moment the latter's daughter (Marisa Tomei) announces her love for a chauffeur. Meanwhile, another woman claiming to be Snaps's offspring is engaged to a fellow (Vincent Spano) who has stolen $50,000 of the big man's money. Wackiness ensues. The winning cast includes Peter Riegert, Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, Eddie Bracken, Harry Shearer, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Bruce Davison. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HOW DID THIS MOVIE EVER FLOP?, July 6, 2001

By	Peter Ingemi (Worcester County, Massachusetts United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Lets see we have a funny plot. A top notch cast with old giants, (Kirk Douglas, Don Ameche) An "A" list star, (Stallone) an "A" list director, (John Landis) a fine supporting cast, (Chazz Palmintari, Marisa Tomei, Tim Curry) and several television favorites (Kirkwood Smith, Ken Howard, Yvonne De Carlo,[Who actually belongs in the old giants list]) a ton of sight and word gags and a movie that flows smoothly and constantly makes you laugh and somehow it flops at the box office and isn't heard of? I don't get it. It is another absolute RIOT. All the actors I've named (and quite a few I haven't) just keep the whole thing roaring (Particularly Palmintari). How this movie remains ignored is beyond me. Even the basic plot of a gangster trying to go straight in a dishonest world works wonders! Why haven't you seen this move? Why don't you buy it now! You won't regret it!

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Nicely Rounded" Movie, February 2, 2000

By	LeAnn (Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews

OSCAR displays Stallone's talent for portraying a comic role that is all too often overlooked for action movies. With an all-star cast to back Sly up, this movie easily floats well. A not-so-unique plot sometimes slows this movie down, but all-in-all, OSCAR is a pretty funny movie.

Sly plays a big-time gangster who promises his dying father (cameo by Kirk Douglas) to go straight. This, however, proves difficult for our hero, with drawbacks such as a mixed up mix up of little black bags, a daughter who changes fiances three times before lunch, a bag-full of annoying visitors, and scandalling bankers and thugs.

OSCAR's cast includes the talents of Sylvester Stallone, Tim Curry (halarious role! ), Linda Gray, Joey Travolta, Ornella Muti, Peter Reigert, Yvonne De Carlo, Marisa Tomei (adorable little snotty girl), and Chazz Palminteri among many, many others.

Although it's out-of-print, it's well worth the trouble to track down and see!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Landis Scores With Another Spoof, January 29, 2005

By	William Hare (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Oscar (DVD)

John Landis scored big with his spoof of high finance magnates "Trading Places" and revisits similar terrain in "Oscar," only this time the big money was made in the crime syndicate field. Landis shrewdly sets his satire in the Depression period to provide for the same kind of contrast between rich and poor that he showcased in "Trading Places", when Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche wagered to see what will happen when poor African American Eddie Murphy is allowed into their world to make business decisions.

In "Oscar" the story begins in a scene where Don Ameche appears again, but this time as family priest saying the last rites for syndicate tycoon Kirk Douglas. Former Universal siren Yvonne De Carlo is also in the scene, which provides an interesting opening to the film as Douglas implores son Sylvester Stallone to get out of the crime business and go legitimate, slapping him several times in a robust closing act to dramatically make his point.

When Douglas passes on loyal son Stallone, despite misgivings, agrees to give up his criminal enterprise. When an important meeting is scheduled with bankers we see a hilarious study in contrasts as Stallone's old hoods have great difficulty shaking their old personas and behaving like gentlemen.

While Stallone encounters problems enough with the transition to business executive his accountant tells him he wants a raise because he is in love and wants to marry Stallone's daughter. Stallone becomes enraged and states that the fiancée in question is not actually his daughter. Meanwhile his own daughter that he acknowledges, who wants to move out from under the suffocating enclosure of the family mansion under her father's constant thumb, begins making marriage noises of his own.

Stallone is forced to constantly shift gears, all the while bemoaning that his concentration is being disrupted on the day of his important meeting with leading bankers who will propel him out of the crime field. When the identity shifts and strategic jockeying reaches a crescendo it reminds one of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's "Whose on First?" routine.

Eventually former Stallone mansion domestic Linda Gray of "Dallas" television fame surfaces. She makes a startling announcement near the film's conclusion that clears up identity problems in a manner that shocks Stallone.