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ARTS
Friday, July 6, 1984
Page 8
The Michigan Daily
'Bachelor Party' is closed
a
By Byron L. Bull
BACHELOR PARTY is the latest
of the deluge of midsummer low-
budget/lowbrow sexual comedies that
traditionally pop up this time of the
year as theater filler in between block-
busters or as part of a drive-in triple
bill.
Like its contemporaries (Making the
Grade, Up the Creek), Bachelor Party is
another bit of excess in the T & A/drugs
and booze school of humor fashionable
ever since the incomprehensible suc-
cess of Animal House six years ago.
The barebones of a plot concern one
young man, a schoolbus driver named
Rick (Tom Hanks), and the stag party
thrown for him by his less than respec-
table best friends on the eve of his wed-
ding. Though Rick is something of a
wise-cracking, flippant slouch, he's
basically a decent fellow, true to his
love, 'the very pretty but vacuous Deb-
bie (Tawny Kitaen). But Debbie,
knowing4he nature of Rick's friends, is
certain things are going to get out of
control, and that Rick will be unfaithful
to her before the night is over.
Complicating things are Debbie's
parents and ex beau, rich conservative
types, who are anything but thrilled with
the wedding plans, and see the party as
the perfect chance to to catch Rick in a
compromising situation. Rick himself
is developing symptoms of cold feet, as
every single one of his married friends
recounts the joys of matrimony with a
definite lack of enthusiasm.
Naturally the party exceeds
everyone's expectations. Everyone is
thrown together amidst absurdly
decadent situations by the film's
climax, when Rick and Debbie's future
seems doomed. Instead of leading up to
all this with an ingenious plot twist,
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Debbie (Tawny Kitaen) advises her fiance Rick (Tom Hanks) not to mess around at his bachelor party the night before
their wedding. Better advice would be to steer clear of this movie.
however, Bachelor Party drops dead of
exhaustion from its relentlessly
adolescent humor.
Director Neal Isreal and his writers
lazily fall back on cheap, vulgar in-
nuendos, puns and insipid one-liners
about big breasts. Need an example?
Learning of Debbie's engagement, her
best friend exclaims, "You're getting
married? And it seems like only
yesterday I taught you how to give your
first blow job!" and there's a long,
silent pause where the audience is ex-
pected to roll in the aisles with
laughter.
Israel seems intent on churning out
one tasteless gem after another, and
the film quickly moves from mere erec-
tion and anal jokes to one character's
repeated suicide attempts and to
desperation of a prolonged bestiality
scene.
All of the numerous inconsistencies
and self contradictions within Bachelor
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Party would be tolerable if it were fun-
ny, but it's not. This is one shoddy,
sleazy bit of exploitative humor
designed to recoup its miniscule in-
vestment in the first week of release
before the bad word gets out.
The only familiar actor in the film
(the only one with a career that could
be damaged by association with this
corpse) is Tom Hanks, still riding the
success of Splash. While Hanks is the
only actor here with anything
resembling screen prescence, he resorts
to flagrant Bull Murray mimickry.
Hanks doesn't have any of Murray's
disarming demeanor, however, so he
ends up looking like a self-satisfied
smart ass, not a character who
generates much sympathy.
As the movie's chief bit of cheesecake
(as every female character here is)
Tawyn Kitaen has little to do but flaunt
her ample chest and wrinkle her cute
nose. She does this with much efficien-
cy, sparing us any attempts at
displaying her dubious acting abilities.
For the rest of the cast, they're locked
into flat stereotypes (a wormy nerd, an
illiterate jock, a drugged-out Califor-
nian) who serve no purpose but to
chase topless women about the
background, guzzling beer and
smashing the bottles over their heads
with ecstatic yowls.
Bachelor Party ends on a truly false,
gushingly sentimental note, after the
preceeding two hours of depraved in-
dulgence. To see such a mindless,
crassly commercial and soulless movie
turn around on its heels and try to con-
vince us it has a heart is more offensive
than any of the laughless vile it has
waded in for the previous two hours.
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