This movie is a bit sleepy, but there are many good things to keep the last role of John Belushi entertaining. First of all, Kathryn Walker was great as the wife who was completely bored with her life. Her role was very convincing. She seemed to know her husband and be tired of his contained personality. Belushi usually played crazy people, but in this role and Continental Divide Belushi plays relatively down-to-Earth roles. Belushi was a totally conservative, conformist, who couldn't even complain about the high power electrical wires right outside his home.
In come his new, strange neighbors who quickly turn his life upside down. Like many films with this theme, the one whose life is turned upside down by his crazy neighbors soon finds out that the real problem is not his neighbor, but his boring life. I remember when this movie came out, but I hadn't seen it until today. The critics really slammed this movie at the time. One thing I think the movie critics missed was how brilliantly this movie satirized suburban doldrums. At the very end of the movie, Belushi's character is watching an advertisement on television about a funeral home. Belushi was only in his early thirties at the time, but was overweight. His character, I believe, was supposed to be about ten years older. The advertisement on television is one of the best scenes (and the person speaking is obviously Dan Akroyd in the commercial). His life is over, and all that is left in his boring existence is preparing for his mortality.
In come his new, strange neighbors who quickly turn his life upside down. Like many films with this theme, the one whose life is turned upside down by his crazy neighbors soon finds out that the real problem is not his neighbor, but his boring life. I remember when this movie came out, but I hadn't seen it until today. The critics really slammed this movie at the time. One thing I think the movie critics missed was how brilliantly this movie satirized suburban doldrums. At the very end of the movie, Belushi's character is watching an advertisement on television about a funeral home. Belushi was only in his early thirties at the time, but was overweight. His character, I believe, was supposed to be about ten years older. The advertisement on television is one of the best scenes (and the person speaking is obviously Dan Akroyd in the commercial). His life is over, and all that is left in his boring existence is preparing for his mortality.