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A lot of fun.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

You won't laugh your head off at "8 Heads in a Duffel Bag" because this decapitated comedy of errors is about as funny as a frontal lobotomy. Pint-sized Joe Pesci of "Goodfellas" plays Tommy, a combustible, crew-cut, wise-guy who must deliver a duffel bag of eight heads to a vengeful crime boss. Basically, the mob chieftain insists on verifying the contents for himself. Andy Comeau co-stars as a clean-cut college kid named Charlie, with a duffel bag of duds, bound for a weekend in Mexico with his cute girlfriend Laurie Bennett (Kristy Swanson of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and her stuffy parents. Dyan Cannon and George Hamilton play Laurie's mother and father Annette and Dick Bennett. Tommy and Charlie take the same flight out, sit next to each other, but don't hit it off. Guess whose bags do the duffel shuffle in all the airport chaos. When Tommy learns he has snagged the wrong bag, he heads off for Charlie's college fraternity house. He tortures Charlie's two pin-headed med school pals Ernie (David Spade) and Steve (Todd Louiso) who cannot tell Tommy a thing because they know nothing about Charlie's plans. How much laughter can you generate from of a scene where a thug snaps a wet towel at two naked frat boys? Meanwhile, in Mexico, David's future mother-in-law, Annette Bennett (Dyan Cannon of "Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice") discovers the grisly contents of the bag and turn into a basket case. Charlie and his girlfriend try to lose the heads, but nothing they do works. Thieves steal Dick Bennett's truck fro them, and a coyote snatches one of the noggins. Dick winds up in a Mexican hoosegow after two heads show up in his baggage at the airport. Eventually, just as Tommy is about to snuff the frats, Charlie calls. Charlie and Tommy agree to get their heads together. By this time, writer & director Tom Schulman has devoted half of the movie to time spent in Mexico on the labored comedy of characters up to their ears in head games. The lowbrow plot gets even more complicated and less humorous. Tommy finds out that Charlie might have let a couple of heads roll, so he forces Ernie and Steve to help him come up with two replacement craniums.While all of this is happening, two more mob guys trail Tommy across the border. It seems that the headstrong crime boss is pretty head up waiting for his heads. Bennett's mother, a chain-smoking battle ax, shows up, too. The trouble with "8 Heads" is that Schulman spends too much time bringing Tommy and Charlie together. A good comedy of errors depends on nimble timing, witty humor, and a snappy story. "8 Heads" squanders too much time on plot filler and gets a little too mean-spirited, particularly when Tommy spews profanities galore. The confusion that guillotines the best laid plans of the heroes rarely elicits a laugh. Tommy looks like a headbanger who wandered in from a Martin Scorsese bloodbath.You know you're in trouble at a comedy when the movie allots more time to the exposition than the gags. You know you're watching an empty-heded comedy when the movie characters resort to jokes about the film. You know the movie-makers are desperate when the resort to a dream sequence. They have the heads warble a tune in Tommy's dreams, while their headless bodies attack him. Pretty soon you notice, too, that the laughs get to be fewer and far between. When one of the characters suggests a better plan than what the writer gave to the star, you know you're in a bad movie. Charlie criticizes Tommy for not flying the heads out on a privately chartered jet. Sure, the heads would arrive intact, but there would be no comedy. Anyway, it shows what a numbskull Tommy is. You'd at least mark your bag if you were toting around severed body parts, right?Compared with the wise guys that he impersonated in "Goodfellas" and "Casino," Pesci's errand boy Tommy is just plain cranky. He loves to smash phones and brandish his giant automatic pistol. Tommy makes a terrible hero because he's never sympathetic and he is much too stupid. Indeed, it is fun to see a couple of 1960s era stars like Cannon and Hamilton co-star in a 1990s film, but they're wasted in stereotypical supporting roles. Hamilton phones in most of his lines to his mother, trying to persuade her not to visit their motel. Spade sleepwalks through a role that demands very little of his enormously dry talent."8 Heads in a Duffel Bag" belongs to the corpse comedy genre. Even "Weekend at Bernie's 2" was one head and one body about this multi-cranical farce. Pesci fans will wonder why he gave his nod to this skullduggery.

The plot is easy to follow. The actors carried it off well and kept the entertainment comical and light. A group of us at work actually watched this on a lunch hour and every one of us appreciated the break. We all felt that the plot was well written, the actors carried the film nicely and that we couldn't have picked a better movie to take a break with. We needed a break from job stress and this movie provided the perfect medicine. We went back to our stressful jobs feeling a lot lighter. I also rented it again for my grandkids who are in their teens. They loved the movie enough to go out and purchase it. I would recommend it to those of you that have a sense of humor and can appreciate comedy. Thanks for the laughs:)

I have to start by asking, What kind of a premise is that!? A man who is about to married gets stuck with a duffel bags with specifically eight heads. How did he get the heads? His duffel bag got switched with a hit man's duffel bag on an airplane! Um. Out of all the interesting film premises out there, why on earth does this film have to have that as the premise? So right off, I hated the story. The rest of the film isn't bad. It isn't a particularly funny film, although David Spade and Joe Pesci are really funny in this. I suppose I can recommend it. I just would have preferred that the film didn't have such a weird story. David Spade and Joe Pesci are excellent and it's a different kind of film. That's about all I can say.

Worth seeing despite the title. Funny Movie, ridiculous premise actually pulled off. Todd Louiso was funny as the roommate and Pesci of course convincing as the killer. Lots of twists, and it doesn't get too predictable. Good lighthearted pick.