The Hollywood Knights is perhaps as low as low-brow humor can go and still be funny. There is nothing pretentious or any deeply layered meanings to be found anywhere in this 90 minute romp about a car club whose favorite hangout is set to close after one last night of mayhem.
Car enthusiasts will love the various hot-rods that tear up the streets throughout the film. There is a fair amount of nudity and sexual humor mixed in. The film gets the rest of its laughs from low-brow pranks perpetrated by the gang of record.
We see the Knights stuff baked potatoes in the tailpipes of cop cars, kidnap and humiliate and honor student, disrupt a country club dance, and drag race up and down the streets of L.A.. There are two particularly inept cops who seem to be on a personal crusade to "kick the crap out of" the Knights; Newbomb Turk (Wuhl) in particular. Their superior officer warns them to just take it easy and let them have their fun since this will presumably be the last night the gang will be around. Needless to say, the cops disregard those instructions and we see one confrontation after another between the two camps. There is also plenty of animosity directed toward a waspy neighborhood group that has helped push the Knights' hangout out of business. We also see the trials and tribulations of four new pledges who have to run naked through Watts to get to a radio station to make a personal dedication to the favorite hangout. Overall, there's plenty of funny stuff going on.
There are a couple of smaller and more serious subplots. One involves a Knight who spends the evening saying his goodbyes to everyone before leaving for Vietnam the next day. This material is sincere, but it does kind of kill the mood in the midst of all the pranks. Another subplot involves Tony Danza and Michelle Pfeiffer having relationship troubles due to the fact that she wants to be an actress and he's against that for reasons that are never really made all that clear. This plot is also somewhat of a distraction, but it gives us a chance to look at Pfeiffer, and she is absolutely amazing in this film!!! Wow! There is no doubting Robert Wuhl's charisma as Newbomb Turk. I'm surprised it took him as long as it did to make a bigger name for himself in Hollywood, but he's pretty much made it now. Pfeiffer and Danza of course went on to much better things, as did Fran Drescher.
Still funny after all these years, The Hollywood Knights is certainly worth a look. But keep in mind that this film is not exactly an episode of Frazier. For those of you looking for "intelligent comedy", you won't find it here. This film gets its laughs from lighting bags of dog crap on fire and watching the horrified reactions of wasps after they've just been mooned.
It makes me laugh, anyway! 8 of 10 stars.
The Hound.
