The Films of Carl Reiner

Enter Laughing

The Comic

Where's Poppa?

Oh, God!

The One and Only

The Jerk

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

The Man with Two Brains

All of Me

Summer Rental

Summer School (May 8/18)

Summer School casts Mark Harmon as Freddy Shoop, an easygoing teacher who's forced into skipping his vacation to teach a group of misfits before the new semester starts - with the loose narrative detailing the mismatched group's various exploits (and their eventual efforts at buckling down to save Mr. Shoop's job). There's ultimately little doubt that Summer School, much like its affable lead character, comes off as a likeable yet somewhat forgettable piece of work, as director Carl Reiner delivers a lackadaisically-paced comedy that's short on big laughs or engrossing sequences - with the decidedly episodic bent of Jeff Franklin's screenplay perpetuating the film's less-than-memorable atmosphere. It's clear, increasingly so, that the picture's hit-and-miss environment is more miss than hit, as the narrative's been suffused with sequences and subplots of a palpably underwhelming nature - which, in turn, ensures that the movie's momentum grows more and more tenuous as time progresses. And yet Summer School nevertheless manages to mostly sustain one's interest for the duration of its 97 minutes, with the film benefiting substantially from the almost uniformly strong work of its various actors. (Harmon is especially charming and engaging here.) The end result is a decent-enough '80s comedy that rarely treads any new or novel ground, which is a shame, certainly, given the potential afforded by its seemingly can't-lose premise.

out of

Bert Rigby, You're a Fool

Sibling Rivalry

Fatal Instinct (January 2/14)

A continuously ineffective parody picture, Fatal Instinct follows grizzled cop Ned Ravine (Armand Assante) as he falls for a mysterious femme fatale named Lola Cain (Sean Young) - with complications ensuing as Lola's less-than-savory intentions are matched by Ned's murderous wife (Kate Nelligan's Lana). Filmmaker Carl Reiner, working from a script by David O'Malley, has clearly set out to lampoon a wide variety of thematically similar movies, including Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, Body Heat, and Double Indemnity, but, as becomes increasingly clear, Reiner and O'Malley haven't bothered to craft any actual jokes and have instead peppered the proceedings with tweaked cinematic references that are, by and large, hopelessly unfunny. And although Assante's straight-faced, impressively deadpan performance remains a highlight, Fatal Instinct suffers from a dearth of clever or interesting ideas that slowly-but-surely transforms it into a rather interminable experience. It's too bad, really, given the potential of a Naked Gun-style approach to the film noir genre, with one's efforts at overlooking the movie's various missteps thwarted by a complete and utter lack of laughs.