Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
STICK TO THE ORIGINAL., February 28, 2004
Anyone who has seen the original 1970 version with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis, under the aegis of Neil Simon's tight scriptwriting, knows how an excellent cast, script, and director can put together a comedy masterpiece. By the same token, it's easy to see how the opposite of that can create another insipid Hollywood bore-a-thon! Despite two stars in the lead that I simply adore, it falls miserably on its head. There are about 2-3 actual gags that evoke so much as a grin, and out of a full length movie that just isn't enough. While I highly recommend the original, you'd probably be better off skipping this wannabe farce.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Will Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn ever make it in New York City., August 11, 2005
Remake of the Neil Simon film, Out of Towners (1970) starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis.
The Clark's son, Alan (Oliver Hudson, Goldie Hawn's real-life son) has finally left the coop and on to Europe. Henry Clark (Steve Martin) has an idea that now is the time to leave Iowa and get a higher-paying job in New York. Actually, he got fired from his weak advertising job and doesn't have the heart to tell his wife, Nancy (Goldie Hawn).
So Henry is on his way by airplane to New York. Could have been an ordinary trip, but Nancy suddenly runs on the airplane to surprise her husband. She announces that she has brought her husband's rash cream. That's not all, they can't land in New York City because it is fogged in. So the plane lands in God-forgotten Boston.
And so with that, getting to New York in time for the important job interview is going to be an adventure of its own. Everything goes wrong.
Also in the cast: John Cleese, Mark McKinney, Carlease Burke, Ernie Sabella, James Arone, Chris McKinney, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
This movie was filmed and released before the reality TV series, "Amazing Race" premiered on Sept. 5, 2001. Perhaps the Out-Of-Towners films gave them the idea.
The Neil Simon version of Out Of Towners (1970) with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis is much more dramatic and realistic, but written to relax and laugh. I highly recommend the 1970 version too.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
You know you're in trouble when..., September 15, 2001
...you're watching a movie with 3 heavyweights (Martin, Hawn and Cleese) and you laugh 3 times. The problem with this remake of the Lemmon-Dennis classic is that we've seen it all before done much better. See "National Lampoon's Vacation", "Dutch", "Fandango" and Martin's own "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". Any one of these "travelling comedy of errors" is considerably more humorous. When the original came out it was something new. It had Jack Lemmon going over the top and really getting the most out of every scene in the film. Lemmon screaming at the top of his lungs-taking down everybody's address, dealing with the cab driver, the dark stranger in Central Park, the fight with the dog over the Cracker Jacks, the chipped tooth, Murray the hotel locator, rain and garbage all over the streets, broken heal and just so much more. Steve Martin's version of George Kellerman is lazy and nearly humorless. It loses sight of the original's comic storyline: New York kicking this simple Ohio couple's butt at every turn and the couple deciding to go back home. It does have Cleese as a closet transvestite (perhaps the films only funny moments). Check out the original or one of the other films mentioned here. This just isn't worth the time.
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