Billy Crystal

  • Parental Guidance (2012)

    Parental Guidance (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, December 2020) While Billy Crystal isn’t listed as one of Parental Guidance’s screenwriters (although he is a producer), his brand of amiable old-school humour gets a pretty good fit in this story of generational clashes. The laughs begin when a couple has to go away for business and calls their parents to babysit the kids for a few days. Predictably, the old-school parenting represented by Crystal (and co-star Bette Midler) doesn’t quite fit the caricatural newageish instructions left by the parents… and things go on from there. It’s all meant to be sweet and easy to watch, which means that you will see every subplot coming from a mile away. As expected, Crystal plays into cranky baby-boomer stereotypes whose blunter methods of parenting can fill the gaps left by the too-permissive parents, and the ending sees personal growth for everyone involved. Unobtrusively directed by Andy Fickman (which apparently means letting Crystal do whatever he wants), the screenwriting tricks are obvious, the comedy is played broadly and the stereotypes take the place of characterization. And yet, it’s not unwatchable. Marisa Tomei is always a plus, and even the predictable sappiness works in wrapping up the film satisfyingly. Sure, Parental Guidance is Hollywood in autopilot mode, but when the formula works for most audiences, it works.

  • Standing Up, Falling Down (2019)

    Standing Up, Falling Down (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) Clearly easing into an elder statesman of comedy roles, Billy Crystal has slowed down over the past few years—fewer film parts and more elements of his filmography “as himself.” And why not? He doesn’t have a lot left to prove, and as a seventy-something-year-old could coast into retirement without anyone putting up a fight. You can almost feel that late-career contentment at play in Standing Up, Falling Down as he plays a dermatologist with a pronounced sense of humour who comes to mentor a young comedian who has moved back to his parent’s place after a failed stint in Hollywood. As a younger and an older man begin a friendship, you can count on most of the tropes of such films to be trotted out, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing: a strong script, directed by Matt Ratner, allows Crystal to provide the laughs even as the film moves into bittersweet territory. Crystal has some easy chemistry with co-lead Ben Schwartz, and the film isn’t in a hurry to get everything done right away even at 91 minutes. Standing Up, Falling Down is not a big event film—it’s meant to play leisurely at home, entertain audiences with a well-executed portrait of male friendship and bow out. As such, it’s reasonably successful in its aims… and it gives Crystal a good later-career role to show everyone that he’s still reasonably funny under the right circumstances.

  • City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold (1994)

    City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2020) Whatever made the success of City Slickers is certainly revisited in its sequel… except mechanically and in diluted fashion. It’s not a real surprise to see Jack Palance come back to join Billy Crystal and Daniel Stern once again as they head out west. While the first film had all the clichés (or rather: familiar elements) of a cattle drive, City Slickers II goes for the clichés (or rather: familiar elements) of a treasure hunt. It works all the way to an upbeat conclusion, but there are quite a few plot cheats along the way, from a final revelation about this being a manufactured reality that is belied by previous events, and then another backflip in order to provide the kind of feel-good conclusion that its earlier twist prevented. Eh, whatever: once again, the real fun is in seeing Crystal and friends match squints with Palance and the indignities of the wild west so far away from the urban canyons of Manhattan. Palance himself has the panache of a veteran movie star, while Crystal is up to his usual standards. City Slickers II is indeed a slickly made film with a big-enough budget to shoot visually interesting scenes out in the far west, but it does mechanically move through its unconvincing plot and doesn’t have much to go in terms of having the characters develop their relationship – the best it can do is welcome a third partner played by Jon Lovitz, who doesn’t turn out to be quite annoying as first feared. That’s not a lot, although if you just want a few chuckles against a western backdrop, City Slickers II is not that painful of an experience.

  • Fathers’ Day (1997)

    Fathers’ Day (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2020) Some movies are about as forgettable as their titles, and so it is that Fathers’ Day is about as generic as its titular holiday. The premise does have a bit of interest to it, as a woman separately manipulates two ex-suitors into believing that they have a hitherto unknown son… and that he needs to be found. It wouldn’t be nearly as funny if the two men didn’t meet and share notes at some point, which does happen once the action gets underway. Of course, such material needs strong comic actors, and so perhaps the one thing that most people will remember from the film is that it’s Billy Crystal facing down Robin Williams as two very different father figures. The generic Hollywood comedy star vehicle approach means that the script leaves many opportunities for Crystal and Williams to mug at the camera and do what they do best. Williams is his usual hyperactive polymorphous persona as a dramatic drama teacher, while Crystal gets to punch an unusually large number of people in the face in a lawyer’s role. The picaresque adventure takes them on the road across California to find out what happened to their son, taking us from scenes shot in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Reno (at least one of those cities doubling for Sacramento) along the way. Much of the film is very generic once you get past the lead actors, although seeing late-1990s Julia Louis-Dreyfus is fun, and the atmosphere (specifically the overwhelming music) is starting to date the film as a period piece. I didn’t hate Fathers’ Day as much as some other reviewers did, but neither did I find it all that compelling.

  • Throw Momma from the Train (1987)

    Throw Momma from the Train (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2019) At this point, I’ve seen enough of Danny DeVito’s movies as a filmmaker (The War of the Roses, Duplex and Death to Smoochy come to mind) to understand his very dark and twisted sense of humour. In that context, Throw Momma from the Train becomes understandable, perhaps even inevitable. Its main idea is to recreate the premise of Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, except as a comedy. Two men with problems, wishing for someone else to take care of it. Except, well, there are complications: One of the men doesn’t quite understand that you don’t always really mean it … and so on. Billy Crystal isn’t bad as a writer with a grudge against his ex-wife, but it’s DeVito who steals the show as a dull-witted mama’s boy who pushes the absurd plot in motion. Don’t fret if you haven’t seen Strangers on a Train: The film explicitly refers to its origins, and only riffs on the premise: the movies are otherwise nothing like each other. It’s not a bad comedy, even though DeVito can be grating, and Anne Ramsey is deliberately irritating (impressively so, though). The dark laughter accumulates until a not-so-dark ending, leaving everyone happy along the way.

  • Running Scared (1986)

    Running Scared (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, March 2019) So, there was apparently an effort in the mid-1980s to make Billy Crystal an action-comedy star? Well, why not: it was his biggest decade on the big screen, and who can blame studios for trying all sorts of things? He certainly won’t be remembered for Running Scared, a standard 1980s buddy-cop film in which our two cowboy cop heroes go around Chicago shooting and blowing up everything the producers could afford. It even comes with all the banter, police brutality, car chases and Uzi-toting drug dealers they could round up. Casting is hit and miss: While Crystal is fine with the banter, his limitations as an action hero are apparent, while the well-matched Gregory Hines does very little tap-dancing but feels significantly more rounded both on the comedy and the action side. Still, there’s enough blood and mayhem to prevent Running Scared from being a pure comedy: With Jimmy Smits on drug dealer role duties, the film does often feel a bit too spread between its successful comic dialogue (even awkwardly translated in French) and its less-successful action beats. Director Peter Hyams makes good use of the Chicago setting with a chase sequence involving the El, but on the flip side he ends up using some of the worst snow ever put in a studio film. There’s little point in getting incensed about it, or any other aspect of Running Scared’s production: the film feels forgettable even as you watch it, and it probably would have been completely forgotten if it wasn’t for Crystal headlining.

  • Analyze That (2002)

    Analyze That (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, September 2018) I saw Analyze That in theatres during its first run, but somehow didn’t write any review of it since then. As oversights go, this is about as minor as the film actually is—as a sequel to the better-known Analyze This, it lazily reteams Billy Crystal with Robert de Niro as a psychoanalyst helping a mob boss deal with his repressed issues. This time, the dynamics are a bit different as de Niro’s character is out of jail and under Crystal’s custody in an attempt to flush out a mob rival. The film also gets slightly auto-referential in making the de Niro’s character become a consultant on an over-the-top mob TV series, which is good for a few inside jokes about the film industry. Still, much of the fun remains the same—Crystal playing his neurotic character against de Niro’s then-unusual mockery of his own persona. Given that de Niro has done little but keep going in that vein for the past fifteen years, that aspect of Analyze That has definitely lost some of its lustre. The film’s biggest problem, though, is that it’s immediately forgettable—I kept watching the film, occasionally doubting that I had, in fact, seen it until I got to the end and was reminded that “ends with a crane and a money-truck heist” was a correct recollection of the film (but not to be confused with Mickey Blue Eyes). It’s entertaining enough (de Niro’s self-mockery still feels more vital here than the copies-of-copies of the same parody he’s been doing since then) but don’t expect a magical experience. Or even to remember much of it moments later.

  • City Slickers (1991)

    City Slickers (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, June 2018) I hadn’t seen City Slickers since the mid-nineties, and I had forgotten quite a bit about it—including what makes it so good. Beyond Jack Palance’s tough-cowboy performance (which led to an Oscar win and the infamous one-armed push-up acceptance speech that I saw on live TV) and Billy Crystal’s usual nebbish charm, City Slickers is built around a solid core of personal rediscovery, as well as an accompanying constellation of recurring gags, strong comic personalities playing off each other, and more throwaway gags than I remembered. Crystal is great, but the ensemble around him also works wonders at driving the film forward. Deftly playing with western archetypes and references (most specifically to Red River, which does make a good accompanying feature), it’s also a very nineties comedy film touching upon modern alienation and the value of manhood in a cerebral urban environment—seeing characters abruptly thrust into a different context is always good for a few laughs. The ending is a bit pat in the way it resorts to familiar action-movie theatrics as a shortcut to self-actualization, but that’s the way these things go: City Slickers is meant to entertain, not radically question our assumptions. It succeeds at what it tries to do.