Black Sheep

There are many words to describe "Black Sheep", and most of them begin with "un" - as in unsophisticated, uninspired, unoriginal. Still, it has some scattershot laughs. Gary Busey, for example, is brilliantly cast as a paranoid Vietnam veteran and comes through with the funniest performance by far. Chris Farley has barely one or two mildly funny moments in the entire film, but he does achieve some touching ones, and his honest efforts to amuse his audience in any way he can at least earn your respect. (**)

Hmm, I remember watching this movie a while back...and I must say it is STILL one of the few movies I ever just refused to finish...I looked at the clock and there was half an hour left and I was not gonna make it...think I stopped it when they were near some trailer...I can remember ONE good scene in it..where Farley says "Kill Whitey!!"..that was funny..but was this movie up to Tommy Boy standards?? Oh god no...not even CLOSE...and you thought Tommy Boy had little plot?? Look at THIS movie, it doesn't even have one, I refuse to believe it does...I was just shaking my head the whole time, because I had actually heard this movie was FUNNY...imagine my surprise...the whole fiasco in the cabin?? Not amusing...more or less stupid...I'll go with the more option there...anyways if anybody out there hasn't seen this yet...save yourself an hour and a half and don't bother.

After the enormous success of TOMMY BOY, it was expected that Chris Farley and David Spade would star in another movie together. What wasn't expected was that the two movies would be so similar. In TOMMY BOY, Richard Hayden (David Spade) must look after the sweet, but clumsy Tommy Callahan (Chris Farley) so he doesn't mess up the family business. In BLACK SHEEP, Steve Dodds (David Spade) is hired by Mike Donnelly's (Chris Farley) brother to look after the sweet, but clumsy Mike so he doesn't mess up an upcoming campaign. While the plots of the two movies aren't exactly identical, they are similar enough to give the feeling that BLACK SHEEP was somewhat rushed into theaters in order to capitalize on the popularity of the duo.

Opening on February 2, 1996, just eleven months after the March 1995 release of TOMMY BOY, BLACK SHEEP received dismal reviews (Gene Siskel said that this was the first film he walked out on in 26 years of reviewing movies). However, the dismal reviews weren't enough to keep audiences away from the theaters and the movie made a decent $32 million, which isn't necessarily a hit, but good nonetheless.

As a major fan of both Chris Farley and David Spade, I find this movie to be one of the funniest comedies from the 1990s. I used to like it even more than I liked TOMMY BOY although I now see that TOMMY BOY is certainly the better movie. Both TOMMY BOY and BLACK SHEEP have some of the most memorable moments in comedy history, though TOMMY BOY has a lot more of them.

Watch TOMMY BOY and BLACK SHEEP back to back and prepare to laugh like you have never laughed before. Chris Farley and David Spade are, in my opinion, the funniest duo ever to appear onscreen. It's a shame they didn't get to make a more movies together before Farley's death.

My rating: ***1/2

Reviews of this film were less than favourable but since I enjoyed the Farley/Spade partnership so much in Tommy Boy I thought I would check this one out as well.

Farley does alot of falling over and generally self abuse in this one, for instance when he tumbles down a mountain side and then gets up and says "What was that all about?".

The bit where the bunk bed collapses on top of Spade during the hail storm and the "Power to the People" speech at the rock concert are hilarious.

Most viewed this film as inane and childish - one reviewer I distinctly remember said that he would rather have Des O'Connor sing him the phone book than watch this again - but I found myself laughing many times.

I really didn't think TOMMY BOY was all that funny. I didn't. But I sure did like BLACK SHEEP. The film is a good film if you want a laugh. But you need to have the right sense of humor. Gene Siskel obviously did not have the correct type of humor, as he is reported to have walked out on this film. Well, that was one of his biggest mistakes, because there are far worse movies out there!

Chris Farley was funny as hell, I don't think anyone should object to that. David Spade still is pretty funny (although he lost a lot of points with me when he did JOE DIRT).

I thought this film was actually pretty good. The other members of the cast were good: Tim Matheson, Gary Busey, Grant Heslov, and Bruce McGill. All of them were funny as hell. Maybe with the exception of Gary Busey's character, who I must admit was pretty stupid. The film had a good story though, and it was sweet-natured along iwth being majorly crude and funny. I recommend ALMOST HEROES and TOMMY BOY *if* you liked this movie. BLACK SHEEP gets 4/5.