Viking Night: Tommy Boy
By Bruce Hall
January 5, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Right?!?
Yes. Yes, it does. I've convinced myself that although literally nothing about anything has changed except for the numerical designation we use to distinguish one day from another, that it will all magically be better. Starting now. So, in order to make my dream a reality, I decided to start the new year with a Chris Farley movie. What better way to remind me of better times than to revisit the work of a beloved comic...who...um...died a gruesome and ignominious death long before his time?
Look, this is a finely crafted delusion that I spent a lot of time on, so I'd appreciate your support.
In case you’re too young to remember, Chris Farley was a legitimate phenomenon back in the early '90s. Think of him as the second coming of John Belushi, who you are probably also too young to remember. I would compare him to someone a little more contemporary, but there is no one. Everything funny in the world died with Chris Farley, so you’ll have to take my word for it. It might be easier to remember David Spade, who played the Snarky Guy in Just Shoot Me and the Snarky Guy in Rules of Engagement. You might also remember him from the Joe Dirt movies, if you’d seen them, but since you probably haven’t, let’s move on.
Farley and Spade were best pals in real life. Farley was like a cuddly, yet irrepressible shelter dog, with Spade as his long suffering yet loving master. Their relationship was comedy gold back in their SNL days, and at some point it was decided to turn them into the next great screen comedy duo. As with most SNL movies, this involved scribbling a few basic plot points onto the back of a postage stamp and stretching them out into a ninety minute film. Hand the script to a handful of comedy professionals, let the cameras roll and watch the magic happen.
That’s what happened with Tommy Boy, and while it’s hardly the classic a lot of people think it is, what you have here is a moderately amusing buddy comedy with some great performances, and a few culturally dated jokes about mental disability and terrorism. It’s a standard issue zero-to-hero yarn about a sad sack named Tommy Callahan (Farley). He’s a lovable loser, a chronic underachiever, a portly slob with a heart of gold. And, he's one of those guys who's chronically 15 minutes late for everything. But he's got a sweet disposition, and managed to squeeze through college as the only 300 pound guy on campus who can bust a cartwheel.
So, after finishing school in the amount of time it takes most people to get a PhD, Tommy is free to return home and help run his father's (Brian Dennehy) successful auto parts business. Things start out well. Tommy gets his own office, and a personal assistant in the form of Richard (Spade), an old high school frenemy and his father’s right hand man. On top of that, Tommy discovers that his father is engaged to Bo Derek, and Rob Lowe is his new half brother. Business is booming, old relationships are rekindled, and Tommy makes a really soft landing for a guy who can point to a D+ as the pinnacle of his academic achievement.
So of course, Tommy’s father drops dead at his wedding. I guess if I woke up tomorrow and found out that Bo Derek was my wife and Rob Lowe was my son, I could die happy too. Unfortunately I’ll never be as lucky as the elder Callahan, whose sudden passing leaves his business in dire straits. A huge business deal is left up in the air, and the future of the company - and the small town that depends on it - is in jeopardy. Naturally, it’s up to Tommy (whose IQ is only slightly higher than his inseam) and Richard (who’s super intelligent but less pleasant than a bull terrier in a room full of bees) to make the big sale and save the day.
Meanwhile, Tommy’s his devious new half brother is busy looking for a payday.
Basically, this is a road trip movie about Chris Farley learning to reel in the spaz and use his natural abilities for good, and David Spade learning to let go of all that bitterness and learn to trust again. They’re both perfectly cast - or more accurately, they’re both an ideal fit for roles that were specifically written for them. The same goes for Lowe, who frequently popped up in screwball comedies as a generic '90s pretty boy villain - which cheekbones so sharp you could cut cheese with them.
Damn that beautiful man.
And there you have it, pretty much. Two schlubs take off on a road trip to save the company, they fight, they bond, they hit a deer, things get peed on, a few fires break out, and eventually they learn a valuable lesson about friendship and teamwork. The humor is entirely pedestrian, relying on the comic ability of the actors to sell it - and for the most part, they do. If someone had asked me to write a paint by numbers buddy comedy for a pair of SNL alumni, this is the movie I would write, and I would make sure to throw Dan Aykroyd a bone for good measure. The problem here is the same one that plagues most SNL based films. That means this is NOT a film so much as it is a series of puerile sight gags and half baked one liners that only Lorne Michaels thought were funny.
I suppose I’d rate Tommy Boy a solid six out of 10 on a comedy scale where 10 is Airplane and zero is anything starring Tom Green. It’s the kind of movie you could watch out of nostalgia, or if you were confined to a hospital bed or stuck on a two hour layover and it was the only thing you had on your iPad - and not feel guilty. It is NOT the kind of life affirming comedy that makes you appreciate a blooming rose (Ghostbusters) or rethink your decision to fling yourself from the Empire State Building (that would be The Blues Brothers). However, I will say that Spade and Farley aren’t the ones who should have gone on to make Black Sheep (no one should have the power to do something like that). For the short time he’s onscreen, Brian Dennehy just kills it as Farley’s dad. The longer I watched them mug together the more I wondered if they really weren’t related. I’d have paid real money to see a prequel.
Alas, that can never be. But sometimes a moderately funny flick is all the boost you need, even if it is only six laughs out of 10. Then again, the new TV that was supposed to make me feel better immediately showed me an ad for a larger, better TV when I turned it on. It created an irony vortex so powerful that it almost imploded my house like the end of Poltergeist. But for a little while, as the tail end of one of my worst years in recent memory, it was enough. It was enough to convince me that maybe - MAYBE everything will be okay.
Unless Bono was right, which he’s not, because screw Bono.