Finders Keepers (1984)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Richard Lester

Writers:

Charles Dennis (novel)
Charles Dennis (screenplay)

Release Date:

18 May 1984 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

A coast to coast joy ride

Plot:

On the run from the police and a female roller derby team, scam artist Michael Rangeloff steals a coffin and boards a train...

Plot Keywords:

Train | Moving A Building | Independent Film | Based On Novel

Cast

Michael O'Keefe	...	Michael Rangeloff
Beverly D'Angelo	...	Standish Logan
Louis Gossett Jr.	...	Century
Pamela Stephenson	...	Georgiana Latimer
Ed Lauter	...	Josef Sirola
David Wayne	...	Stapleton
Brian Dennehy	...	Frizzoli
Jack Riley	...	Ormond
John Schuck	...	Police Chief Norris
Timothy Blake	...	Estelle Norris
Jim Carrey	...	Lane Bidlekoff
Robert Clothier	...	Art Bumbalee
Jayne Eastwood	...	Anna-Marie Biddlecoff
Alf Humphreys	...	Mulholland
Barbara Kermode	...	Isadore Frizzoli

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:L | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

High River, Alberta, Canada

Company:

CBS Entertainment Production

Quotes:

Michael Rangeloff: That's an expensive watch!
Pawnbroker: So take off the clothes and put on the watch. See how many restaurants you get into.

Very old-style caperish farce, with nice tone, funny gags

Richard Lester is an American-born director who was a quiet architect of a certain type of English screen comedy, working on early TV experiments with members of radio's "Goon Show" (Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan), then the first couple of Beatles movies, then some movie stuff which parallelled the surreal comedy of the TV Monty Python, inc "The Bed-Sitting Room" (from a play co-written by Milligan) and "How I Won The War". This is a nice little film which has some of the gagsmanship of his old stuff, and kind of a "What's Up Doc" type plotline, with money from a heist, plenty of screwball characters, and general old-fashioned movie farce confusion. Doesn't probably get the momentum it wants to, but it's low-key affable loopyness is pretty watchable. As the Maltin review suggests, in a pretty decent little comedy cast, the David Wayne turn as the antique, shambolic train conductor is the real highlight, with laughs pretty much every time he turns up. In Lester's career, it's not a "Hard Day's Night", "Three Musketeers", "Cuba", or even "Juggernaut", but it's different and enjoyable enough on its own terms for comedy movie addicts to take a look.