A Quirky, Zany, Frenzied Romp
If you enjoy silly romp films like "It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way the Forum," "Noises Off," "Some Like It Hot," almost anything by Mel Brooks, the "Road To ..." movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and the Marx Brothers, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one.
The film starts in NYC in the 1930s with two out-of-work actors (Stanley Tucci, Oliver Platt) practicing for roles they’ll never get and trying to scam food. When they insult an overrated stage actor (Alfred Molina), they find themselves running for their lives and hiding on aboard a ship. When they wake up in the morning, the ship – an ocean liner – is preparing to debark.
Of course they’re not going to get off the ship in time because they’ve got big work to do coming face to face again with the pompous actor plus a Nazi ship’s staff director, the compassionate and lovely social director, the sweet and innocent ship detective, the ship’s lovelorn captain, a deposed queen, an endangered sheik, an impoverished grande dame and her plain and shy daughter, an egocentric gay athlete, a suicidal entertainer, a Russian terrorist, and a pair of murderers. Whew! All that in under two hours!
The cast also includes Woody Allen, Teagle F. Bougere, Elizabeth Bracco, Steve Buscemi, Billy Connolly, Hope Davis, Dana Ivey (who flat out startled me in her similarity to Maggie Smith), Allison Janney, Richard Jenkins, Isabella Rossellini, Campbell Scott, Tony Shalhoub, and Lili Taylor.
Written, produced and directed by Stanley Tucci.Read full review
