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Down and Out in Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills couple Barbara and Dave Whiteman find their lives altered by the arrival of a vagrant who tries to drown himself in their swimming pool.
Release : | 1986 |
Rating : | 6.2 |
Studio : | Touchstone Pictures, Silver Screen Partners II, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Construction Coordinator, |
Cast : | Nick Nolte Bette Midler Richard Dreyfuss Little Richard Tracy Nelson |
Genre : | Comedy |
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Reviews
Best movie of this year hands down!
How sad is this?
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.
Hello everybody. It's my first review and I am not very sure It's gonna be the best. I'll try. I love cinema since I was a kid. It made me dream so soon and I tried my best my life to be the nearest to the fantasy world. This movie was very touching to me in some way. I don't know exactly why, but I felt very identified with its different characters. I think the story was very cheerful and funny. We all know that it doesn't have to be realistic to express that strange human nature in ourselves. I think this movie is a satire that talks about the immature people trying to give a sense to their lives. This premise doesn't change the fact that, even if it is silly, it is, to me, very endearing. Firstly, I like the principal character, because of his courage and his impertinence. Probably, this is which I will more identified with. Secondly, the rich family really made me laugh, each one of them, from the wife, so alienated in her superficial and material life, full of appearance, to the kid, the typical adolescent who doesn't know what to do with his life, so careless to his parents. Then its the servant, a sign that is a middle-high rich family of Beverly Hills, one of the most riches cities in the world. She is a Latin woman who doesn't have a hight level education and she soon choose to believe that she is oppressed by her boss. So she became Marxist. I know that this story sounds absurd, but I think that this picture is probably one of the best entertaining comedies I ever seen. I like watching it from time to time. I probably will watch it again soon. I like very much the rhythm of the film, its music and its montage. It's a very swift movie, easy to see. Nothing complex. Even though, you can always feel that the filmmaker is talking about deep matters. That is the good thing of art. You can always discover new reviews and feel new experiences across them. Im very sorry about my English. I'm practicing because it's been a long time a didn't practice. I hope to improve it on the future. I would like to write much more in the future. I have spent a long time watching thousands of movies and I want to share my experience and my opinions. I hope anyone to like it or find it useful. I'm sure there is many people here who loves cinema as much as I do, probably more. I'm not watching by now so many movies as I used to do, but I still feel for films a deep love and respect. I've been thinking a long time that films have many to give to the people, not only entertaining but culture, freedom and learning. I know this is to simple to be written, but I need to be clear, so I could find my way to be happier in the future. I think we are all destined to be happier if we make and effort for that, the right thing. Thank you very much to all who have red me. I hope to write soon again. Kind regards and wishes.
Sure it hasn't dated all that well, but look at this 1986 hit as a nice time capsule of L.A. from that time period. A period that basically ended with the sobering and terrifying riots of 1992. Down and Out in Beverly Hills deals with a well-to-do yet dysfunctional family having its priorities rearranged by a bum who first attempts to drown himself in their swimming pool. Nick Nolte, looking only a little scruffier than his 2002 Hawai'ian shirt mugshot plays the Jerry Baskin character on different levels. Early on he seems much like the typical run of the mill schizophrenic homeless person chasing after a dog who found himself a better owner. Then, after his dunk in the pool, we see that he is actually quite intelligent and observant. Almost instantly he sees what is wrong with everyone in the household. He just can't seem to point any of that intellect toward improving his own situation. Even when it is laying there right in front of him.The patriarch of the family is Dave Whiteman who embodies some of Richard Dreyfuss's better work. He is very successful, yet he it just too uptight. Something seems lacking for him. It isn't the appearance of the bum that sets him off. He actually is the one who most wants him to stay if perhaps to live vicariously through him in some ways. Bette Middler is on hand as Dave's sexually unfulfilled wife who mostly spends her time with worthless self-help gurus. She even has one hired for their cutesy little dog. Nolte is apparently the only man around who has what it takes to recharge her batteries in bed! The family has an attractive yet obviously anorexic daughter and an androgynous son. A sexpot Hispanic maid is also on hand for Dave to use at his will... that is until Nolte moves in on her as well. The film takes place over about a month's time and there really isn't much plot to speak of other than seeing how these characters are altered by Nolte's character.The film has several funny moments, and thankfully Ms. Middler is not allowed to sing too much. The theme song by the Talking Heads is always welcome to the human ear. Some of the comedy, mostly involving the cutesy dog reactions and Little Richard's exasperated yelling are more annoying than anything else. There are some great performances and many funny observations about successful Angelinos at that time. Not much of a message to be learned from any of it, however. Maybe that is why it works. 8 of 10 stars.The Hound.
Paul Mazursky's southern California update of Jean Renoir's 1932 comedy 'Boudo Saved From Drowning' stars Nick Nolte as a skid row derelict rescued from attempting suicide in the backyard swimming pool of upscale executive Richard Dreyfuss. Installed quite suddenly in the lap of luxury, Nolte begins exerting unusual influence over his benefactors, but the ambiguity of the character and his intentions is needlessly destroyed in the final scenes. Mazursky is on familiar ground for most of the movie, as always at his best when mocking the lifestyles of the rich and trendy, but it's a shame that he felt compelled to combine scenes of near sublime social satire with indiscriminate numbskull farce. Someone should have told him that seeing people fall fully clothed into a swimming pool (as most of the cast is required to do at the film's climax) is only funny when you're there to witness it firsthand.
I watched this flick some days ago, expecting a rather funny movie, since my TV guide called it a comedy. After I finished watching it, I tried to recall how many times it managed to get me laughing. Very few, I realized. After skipping through some of the reviews on this page, I wondered why so many people thought this movie was funny at all. To me, it was more social satire than comedy; bored, rich and neurotic white people trying to spice up their lives and a bum impersonating everyone they want him to be, helping and using his hosts at the same time.The script tries hard, but fails to produce many laughs, and the cheesy ending scene destroyed it all, wasting a potentially great cast. If you're interested in rich Beverly Hills residents' problems, you may take a look, but if you're searching for some good laughs, you're going to be very disappointed.