1980

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

Adorable little movie that reeks of amateurism but is possibly more delightful for it. My first “indie” movie, really uneven but still fun.

Spoiler-free Movie Review of The Gods Must Be Crazy:

The Gods Must Be Crazy is probably the first independent feature film I ever saw, although that definition is questionable since it was a studio production in South Africa. But it was certainly the first non-mainstream film I went to in the theaters. I certainly saw The Red Balloon and probably a lot of other foreign films in libraries and in school growing up, but this was the first picture that played in cinemas alongside the blockbusters.

Actually, I saw it in a little theater in Needham, Massachusetts when my aunt took a bunch of us cousins. She raved about it, talking at length about this record-breaking film. Needham had apparently got a print of the film and the townspeople went so nuts over it that it played all summer long, setting some kind of record. From my research 30 years later, this appears to have been the case in a number of markets. The film was made and released in September 1980 in South Africa, slowly adding locations around the world before finally landing in limited markets in the United States in July 1984. Despite the brutal competition of that summer, the film became a cult classic and broke all kinds of box office records for a foreign film. Rewatching the film for the first time 30 years later, it’s easy to see why.

It isn’t very promising at first, with dreadful 1980’s nature film narration over a ton of stock shots of the bush and alternatively city life in what looks like Johannesburg. This is unfortunately a running problem with the film, as it appears to have been made on a shoestring budget with mono sound and low quality film stock. The footage seems to speed up randomly, often for comic effect, but sometimes just to speed up the run time. The other enormous difficulty is that the original voices were Afrikaans and they have been very poorly dubbed in English. The dubbing isn’t really the problem so much as the choice of voiceover actors – they are completely inappropriate.

The story, however, makes up for any and all faults and you quickly forget everything else. The plot is simply told: the San tribe is living a peaceful and simple life away from the modern world in the Kalahari Desert when a glass Coca-Cola bottle is dropped from a passing plane into their midst. While at first they marvel at this new object, using it as a tool, it soon introduces new feelings of greed and jealousy and before long they are fighting over it. Recognizing the negative influence this foreign object has created, bushman Xi (Nǃxau) tries to return it to the gods whom he believes sent this instrument to them. When throwing the bottle into the air has no effect, he resolves to take the object to the end of the world (“about twenty days’ walking, or even forty”) and throw it off.

A second storyline involves Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo), a city-dweller who tires of the “civilized” world and moves to Botswana to become a teacher. There she will encounter biologist Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers), who goes absolutely to pieces around women, becoming the world’s clumsiest man. The movie quickly shifts into slapstick that is sort of tiresome, but commits to it so completely that I found myself won over by its dedication. There’s a third storyline about a revolutionary leader/terrorist that doesn’t totally work but is sort of necessary for the plot.

Everything about the movie is a bit overdone, from the characterization of the bad guys, to the incessant slapstick humor and the heavy-handed symbolism and commentary on the “civilized” world. And yet the movie is very enjoyable. There’s an innocence to the proceedings that is somehow charming and the flaws seem to melt away next to the good heart on display. I know there was a sequel, but I can’t imagine why, as The Gods Must Be Crazy is a wonderful little film that with luck will never be remade and is still worthwhile 30 or more years later.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

The Representation Test Score: C (5 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

[schema type=”movie” name=”The Gods Must Be Crazy” description=”A comic allegory about a traveling Bushman who encounters modern civilization and its stranger aspects, including a clumsy scientist and a band of revolutionaries.” director=”Jamie Uys” actor_1=”N!xau” ]

Main Cast	N!xau Xi, Marius Weyers Andrew Steyn, Sandra Prinsloo Kate Thompson, Louw Verwey Sam Boga
Rating	PG
Release Date	Wed 10 Sep 1980 UTC
Director	Jamie Uys
Genres	Action, Comedy
Plot	A comic allegory about a traveling Bushman who encounters modern civilization and its stranger aspects, including a clumsy scientist and a band of revolutionaries.
Poster
Runtime	109
Tagline	The critics are raving… the natives are restless… and the laughter is non-stop!
Writers	Jamie Uys (written by)
Year	1980

#140RVW

Dangerfield fails to ruin Harold Ramis’ directorial debut, a loosely strung together collection of classic improv. Unapologetically dumb…

What’s more:

I’m not the world’s biggest Caddyshack fan. I know that’s sacrilege to many. I’m reviewing it today because the ridiculously talented Harold Ramis has just passed away and this was his directorial debut.

It’s hysterically funny and I enjoyed the hell out of it as a kid who was too young to be watching it. (I have no idea where I saw it – someone else’s house, that’s for sure.) It is unquestionably a comedic classic.

But it has a few flaws that are deal breakers for me:

• It is directly responsible for the career of Rodney Dangerfield. Really I could probably stop there. He was an obscure stand-up comic who would have likely never have gotten a break into film without this movie. And would I accept this movie having never existed as a reasonable price for having never been exposed to Rodney Dangerfield? I absolutely would. I’d take that every time.

• Ted Knight is unwatchable. I know he’s doing his thing and it’s his shtick; I don’t care. I hate it. It was funny on the Mary Tyler Moore show. It’s cartoonish and stupid here. 

The biggest thing against the film is also actually it’s best feature: it’s really just a long series of improvised scenes. It’s not that there isn’t a plot, it’s just that no one cares about it. Think about it – who is the star of the movie? It’s Danny Noonan, the dorky caddy played by Michael O’Keefe. You forgot he was even in the movie, didn’t you?

This is exactly the movie you expect from a bunch of sketch comedy professionals. But then you’d expect National Lampoon’s Animal House to have felt even more like that for the same reason – but it didn’t because John Landis was able to rein in the comedians. Ramis let everyone go for it and the bit parts essentially became the film. So you get genius scenes like Bill Murray’s “Cinderella story” but you also end up with Dangerfield becoming a main character.

In the end, the great comedy far outweighs the lack of cohesiveness, leaving us with a classic.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

Main Cast	Chevy Chase Ty Webb, Rodney Dangerfield Al Czervik, Bill Murray Carl Spackler, Ted Knight Judge Elihu Smails
Rating	R
Release Date	Fri 25 Jul 1980 UTC
Director	Harold Ramis
Genres	Comedy, Sport
Plot	An exclusive golf course has to deal with a brash new member and a destructive dancing gopher.
Poster
Runtime	98
Tagline	At last, a comedy that bites!
Writers	Brian Doyle-Murray (written by) &, Harold Ramis (written by) …
Year	1980