Renaissance Man (1994)

Director:

Penny Marshall

Writer (WGA):

Jim Burnstein (written by)

Release Date:

3 June 1994 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

One Man's Mission To Teach The Few, The Proud... The Impossible!

Plot:

Danny DeVito plays an advertising man who is slowly sliding downhill. When he is fired from his job in Detroit...

Plot Keywords:

Box Office Flop | Basic Training | Army | Army Life | Literature

Cast

Danny DeVito	...	Bill Rago
Gregory Hines	...	Sergeant Cass
James Remar	...	Captain Tom Murdoch
Ed Begley Jr.	...	Jack Markin
Lillo Brancato	...	Pvt. Donnie Benitez (as Lillo Brancato Jr.)
Stacey Dash	...	Pvt. Miranda Myers
Kadeem Hardison	...	Pvt. Jamaal Montgomery
Richard T. Jones	...	Pvt. Jackson Leroy
Khalil Kain	...	Pvt. Roosevelt Nathaniel Hobbs
Peter Simmons	...	Pvt. Brian Davis, Jr.
Gregory Sporleder	...	Pvt. Melvin (as Greg Sporleder)
Mark Wahlberg	...	Pvt. Tommy Lee Haywood
Cliff Robertson	...	Colonel James
Ben Wright	...	Private Oswald
Ann Cusack	...	Bill's Secretary

Also Known As:

Army Intelligence
By the Book

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:L | South Korea:12 | Australia:M | France:U | Germany:6 | Norway:11 | Spain:T | Sweden:7 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Detroit, Michigan, USA

Company:

Cinergi Pictures Entertainment

Trivia:

After failing to bring in audiences as a comedy under the original title "Renaissance Man", the movie was re-released to theaters a couple months later marketed as a drama with the alternate title "By The Book", and unsurprisingly pulled in far fewer receipts the second time through the theaters.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: The underlining under "OXYMORON" changes between when Bill first writes it and when he explains it to Montgomery.

Quotes:

Bill Rago: [about reading their essay] All right, who wants to start?
[no reply]
Bill Rago: Nobody?
[snickers]
Bill Rago: I thought this was the volunteer army...

Movie Connections:

References Rocky (1976)

Soundtrack:

LIFE IN THE STREETS

Truly nice, for the heartwarmer crowd

Army recruits categorized as, shall we say, neither the best nor brightest, but they somehow get turned on when reluctant teacher DeVito reads Shakespeare's Hamlet to them and it hits a chord. The high point of the film is reached when one of those recites on command his "irrelevant" Shakespeare on a rainy night's drill to Sergeant Gregory Hines and finds in his memory from "Henry V" (with lead-in not at hand) "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother." This is a truly nice movie, about heroes but not about touting war. At a later point, my usually stoic wife shed some tears. Danny De Vito is surprising to me. He generally leaps over my expectations, no matter how far I raise them up.