Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Randy Quaid | ... | Jack Cloud | |
Frank Whaley | ... | Michael Latchmer | |
Christine Harnos | ... | Sarah Hughes (as Kristina Harnos) | |
Sheree North | ... | Mrs. Hughes | |
Nancy Kwan | ... | Madame Chang | |
Dante Basco | ... | Chinese Boy | |
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Peter Pan | ... | Chinese Chef |
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Pierre Epstein | ... | Marty |
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Jeff Chayette | ... | Hershel the Guard |
Allan Trautman | ... | Joseph | |
Allen Bloomfield | ... | Irving | |
Evi Quaid | ... | Girl on Guard (as Evi Motolanez) | |
Nick LaTour | ... | The Bokor | |
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Clifford Shegog | ... | Voodoo Doorman |
Brent Hinkley | ... | Benny |
Randy Quaid as the taxi driver drives Zen parables (Is time money - Is time the root of all evil?) into his passenger/protegee in a high-speed, idiosyncratic tour of their city's ethnic coteries. All the boy wants is to dispose of his date's dead dog Jasper and get back to the babe who's so hot she mutters darkly about being a Pressure Cooker: his conventional efforts are continually thwarted. Quaid is respected by the peculiar groups he interests in the dog's corpse and effects, and our one-gloved heroine is much keener on him than on her rather lackluster date. Written by Tanaqui Weaver <cen@ecs.ox.ac.uk>
I was so incredibly lucky years ago when I was home one weekday morning and saw this on the USA channel. The low rating is definitely a hit job. (Hundreds of people type in low scores for an obscure, little-seen film that other people consider superb, delightful, refreshing?) As the hero's quest goes on, there may have been some longeurs, but the wild and wacky original humor of this movie makes this a small classic.
Everyone with taste and insight loves Frank Whaley and he is at his Frank Whaley-ist here: vulnerable and funny, tender and oppressed, buffeted by forces he cannot control.
The characterization of the girlfriend is bizarre, to say the least--for reasons you'll have to watch the film to see. And the film also reminds us that the late Sheree North was a delightful comedienne, not just a onetime starlet.
This is perhaps the best, most worthwhile comedy that almost nobody has ever seen. If MTV can show a crappy movie like "Rolling Kansas" over and over and over, why can't they show this?