This is a comedy of little words and very Laurel & Hardy-esk with two people that I love on their own. Lee Evans has made me laugh for years going back to his Hippodrome appearance which was his first on TV I believe to Nathan Lane who I loved in The Producers on stage and who’s voice just makes me laugh with the slightest tone. Well these two team up for this farce of a story released in 1997. Made on a budget of $38m which then went on to gross $122.4m which is a success to me but wait let’s take a look at the critics with IMDb gave it a 6.4/10 & Rotten Tomatoes was in the negative view with 42%. It stars Nathan Lane, Lee Evans, Christopher Walken, William Hickey, Vicki Lewis, Debra Christofferson and Camilla Søebergand. Onto the plot.
Two hard up brothers inherit a string factory from their elderly father. Which is running out of funds itself, they also have an ornament or two, a cigar box, his first ever piece of string and a house in the middle of nowhere which is of interest to neither of them. The older one is a chef and is hosting the mayor at his swanky restaurant and the younger one is desperate to keep his father’s memory and business open, but has been supported by his wife for a while. And the only reasons she’s been doing that is that she was expecting a big payday when his father wills give’s him. When she realises that this isn’t going to happen, she throws him out. The older brother gives the mayor half a cockroach in his meal which chokes him to death closing his restaurant and putting him on the chef scrapheap. The two brothers meet up and decide that the only option is to go and stay in the shack of a building in the middle of nowhere. They spend the first night sharing a small blanket with rain falling on them through the holes in the roof. They discover that there is a mouse in the house and it thinks it owns the house and isn’t going to give up without a fight. The battle begins as the two bungling brothers try to catch or kill the mouse running around their shack. When they discover that the house is in fact the missing LaRue and worth a fortune even in its run-down state they are back they just have to tidy up the house and get rid of that mouse. Let the war begin between the boys and the mouse.
That is plenty of this plot for you seeing as this is such a thin plot, I am surprised I wrote this much. This is a slapstick comedy that is played by a very British Lee Evans with an American accent and Nathan Lane who regularly hurts his colleagues when a little too boisterous on set. With this movie I could see that happening a lot! This is a sad sentimental movie as well as the smashing each other in the head and shooting nail guns and rolling on mouse traps and sinking to the bottom of frozen lake let alone what happens to the pest control guy hired to get rid of the mouse. This is a smash and a crash and an explosion and it works very well. You can check your brain at the door and sit down to watch this mindless entertainment which I absolutely love and would recommend to anyone with a sense of humour so that will only rule some of my friends out.
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