140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW
Actually better than I expected – no one more surprised than me. I’m not sure I’d say that I liked it, but it’s pretty good at what it does.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Weekend at Bernies:
I’d hate for you to think I watched this movie and reviewed it just so I could watch Catherine Mary Stewart and put lots of pictures of her in this review. It’s totally true, of course, I’d just hate for you to think it…
The truth is that this one was on my list since it was going to be 25 years old on July 5th and I’d never gotten around to seeing it. I frankly had no interest in seeing it before now, but I’m choosing to use the opportunity of these anniversaries to see some things I might not otherwise. Besides, Barney Stinson from the tv series How I Met Your Mother kept going on about it in a running gag so I felt it was probably worth a watch.
Weekend at Bernie’s looked perfectly stupid when it was released, so it was easy to skip, and I certainly didn’t expect much when I finally watched it. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the movie, though.
Oh, it is definitely stupid, don’t get me wrong. I don’t know, though, I found it sort of impressive in the way it just kind of went for it. It was really effective in going for madcap silliness. Stupid movies that try to be zany and wild often achieve neither, feeling calculated, safe and just dumb. This one just squeaked over the line because the slightly morbid premise. Black comedies are a tricky business; you need them to feel somewhat dangerous or it doesn’t really work. Weekend at Bernie’s has just enough of an edge to make it kind of enjoyable.
What doesn’t work is that the plot is really convoluted. Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman) are shlubs at an insurance company, and of course you have the dynamic that one of them is rigid and uptight and one of them is a lazy party guy. Richard can’t summon the courage to talk to the beautiful temp Gwen Saunders (Catherine Mary Stewart) and when he does he keeps getting caught out in lies he tells to impress her. While working over the weekend he uncovers a case of fraud that the guys bring to their boss Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), who invites the pair to his Hamptons home for Labor Day weekend to go over the numbers. In fact, Bernie is the one skimming from the company and he chooses this fairly involved ruse in order to have the boys killed. For this Bernie enlists the help of a mobster named Vito (Louis Giambalvo) that he is working with, when not having an affair with Vito’s girlfriend. Vito sends his hitman Paulie (Don Calfa) to whack Bernie instead, which will be discovered (much) later through an unlikely sequence with an answering machine and a fake suicide note. The story, like Bernie’s plan, is absurdly over-complicated. I’ve barely begun to list the different things that occur in this 97 minute movie. It’s all too much. This would have been much more effective with a much shorter, more streamlined approach. It might have made a very effective tv show.
While the premise is absurd, and so is the movie, I kind of enjoyed Weekend at Bernie’s and understand why it has a lot of fans. It certainly will never get a second viewing by me, but I know it’s a cult classic for a lot of people and I can see that. I realize that there was a sequel, but my interest only goes so far. I can’t imagine how they made a second one with the same actors and am sort of afraid to look it up. Besides, I do know that Catherine Mary Stewart isn’t in it…#dealkiller…
Poster:
Trailer:
Bechdel Test:
Fail
The Representation Test Score: D (3 pts)
(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)
| Main Cast | Andrew McCarthy Larry Wilson, Jonathan Silverman Richard Parker, Catherine Mary Stewart Gwen Saunders, Terry Kiser Bernie Lomax |
| Rating | PG-13 |
| Release Date | Wed 05 Jul 1989 UTC |
| Director | Ted Kotcheff |
| Genres | Comedy |
| Plot | A pair of losers try to pretend that their murdered employer is really alive, but the murderer is out to “finish him off.” |
| Poster |  |
| Runtime | 97 |
| Tagline | Bernie Lomax would be the perfect host, except for one small thing. He’s dead. [USA Theatrical] |
| Writers | Robert Klane (written by) |
| Year | 1989 |
