Big Trouble (1986)

Leonard Hoffman (Alan Arkin) is an insurance agent with a suburban family. His three sons all get accepted into Yale. His boss Winslow (Robert Stack) refuses to help him with any scholarships. His work mate is the hard-nosed O'Mara (Charles Durning). He goes on a sales call to the drunken rich trophy wife Blanche Rickey (Beverly D'Angelo). She complains about her gambler husband Steve Rickey (Peter Falk). Desperate for money to pay for his kids' college, he joins Blanche to murder her husband for the life insurance.This is the last film of John Cassavetes and he apparently hated it. The plot is so close to Double Indemnity that this is basically a spoof. Of course, none of it is funny because every moment of the movie, I'm asking if this is deliberate. It's hard to tell since Double Indemnity is not watched all the time. In order for a spoof to work, the audience must know all the beats in the original and what the filmmaker is doing to satire each moment for a joke. Then the last third of the movie goes bonkers. It becomes non-sense. The actors are trying for some wacky physical comedy despite the noir story. It's frustrating to watch a movie where the jokes don't work. One can see that everybody is trying but I don't understand what the film is trying to do.

Long time buddies from Actor's Studio days John Cassavetes and Peter Falk collaborate on this humorous send up of Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity. Wilder's whose humor could be grimly ironic was still around when Big Trouble came out. I wonder what Billy thought especially since Double Indemnity classic that it is has very few laughs.It was one fateful day when Alan Arkin met up with Beverly D'Angelo who had that low cut come up and see me ambiance that got Arkin hooked. Up there for a homeowner's policy discussion, Arkin sells them a life insurance policy for husband Peter Falk with that ever fateful double indemnity clause for accidental death.Our first meeting with Falk should tell you this won't work out quite like Double Indemnity did. Both he and D'Angelo like to live large, check out the mansion they have. And I won't say what it is that Falk does for a living to bring in the Benjamins, but trust me he's one shady character. In fact not unlike the man he played in my favorite Peter Falk movie The Brink's Job, but far more upper class or at least he's used to living like that.Now a man used to privilege is Robert Stack, CEO of the insurance company that Arkin works for. Arkin's having trouble and who wouldn't paying tuition for his teenage triplets who MUST go to Yale to study music. Stack's a hearty and hateful privileged WASP snob who tells Arkin it's better that people make it on their own. No help from him getting into his birthright alma mater. After that Arkin is as easy prey for D'Angelo as Fred MacMurray was for Barbara Stanwyck in the original.All I will say is that Big Trouble doesn't quite work out the way the original did. Funniest scene in the film for me is the Medical Examiner's office where the post mortem is conducted by Dr. Richard Libertini who is in on the plot and who's a character himself. The Edward G. Robinson insurance investigator role is Charles Durning. Durning is as smart as Robinson, but it wouldn't have taken a Barton Keyes like genius to blow this one up.Big Trouble will not be a Billy Wilder like classic, but it's pretty funny and director Cassavetes and actor Falk work well together with the whole cast. Cassavetes and Falk had almost 35 years of experience together and they function like a well greased machine.In addition to Billy Wilder both Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck were also still with us when Big Trouble hit the big screen. Wonder what they thought too?

l rented this movie by accident, recommending my girlfriend rent the other film entitled "Big Trouble" (2002). Well, it turned out we were lucky as Alan Arkin and Peter Falk are some of my favorite actors. The chemistry between Arkin and Falk is magical. The plot parallels some old Hollywood movies such as "Double Indemnity" in an odd fashion. I would describe it as "quirky", a throwback to the 1980's and a "must see" for all fans of Arkin, Falk, and Beverly D'Angelo, who looks fabulous in a variety of sexy outfits and carries her part with typical aplomb. Some of the scenes had me laughing so hard I had to stop the tape to recover (see Sardine Liquor). Charles Durning plays his important supporting role to perfection as well. Look for the uncredited cameo by Samuel L. Jackson near the beginning. This is a winner!

Knowing the kind of work of which actors Alan Arkin and Peter Falk and writer Andrew Bergman are capable, the blame for this jumbled, poorly made "comedy" can only be laid at the feet of director John Cassavetes, or whoever it was who was responsible for it. Supposedly Cassavetes didn't direct most of it but was brought in to replace a director who was fired. If that's so, it's understandable why he was fired. If it's not so, then it's Cassavetes who should have been fired. While all accounts I've read about Cassavetes mention that one of his most endearing traits was his wild sense of humor, there's certainly no evidence of that in this misfire. Falk tries valiantly to breathe some life into this lumbering mess, but Arkin seems to be waiting for someone to tell him what to do--or at least to give him something funny to say. If the producers had wanted to make a sequel to the hilarious Falk/Arkin "The In-Laws," then that's what they should have done. The picture is somewhat schizophrenic--it SEEMS to be a sequel to "The In-Laws," and was advertised as such, but Arkin's and Falk's characters and situations have been changed so drastically that it's really a completely different picture.Anyway, the film is virtually a complete dud. The few gags that made it into the picture are ruined by bad timing and poor editing. In addition, much of the film makes no sense whatsoever (there were major production problems, with constant cast and crew changes, and it shows) and the movie did no good for anyone connected with it--especially the audience. While "The In-Laws" was a major hit, this thing came and went pretty much overnight. It was savaged by critics and ignored by audiences--justifiably on both counts. If you're not in the mood to see otherwise extremely talented people embarrass themselves, do yourself--and them--a favor and skip this.