the list of 9 for november 28, 2009:
THE NINE STRANGEST "BUDDY MOVIE" TEAM-UPS
Ah, the buddy movie. We don't see too many of them anymore, do we? But during the '80s and '90sthis was a staple genre in cinema. Perhaps it all really started with the offbeat pairing of EddieMurphy - then only known for his work on Saturday Night Live - and serious actor Nick Noltein 48 Hours, which became a box office smash and inspired countless imitators, from hitslike Lethal Weapon (Mel Gibson and Danny Glover) and Midnight Run (Robert De Niro andCharles Grodin) to misses such as Hollywood Homicide (Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett) andLoose Cannons (Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd). The very point of these movies is the comicfriction between two mismatched leads. But the following nine films exhibit highly questionablecasting choices:

  1. Jay Leno and Pat Morita, COLLISION COURSE (1989). Thisstinker was barely released. With a duo like The Karate Kid's elderly Morita andnon-actor Leno (during his Tonight Show guest hosting days), you may understand why.

  2. Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines, WHITE NIGHTS(1985). This Cold War thriller starred Baryshnikov as - guess what? - an expat Russianballet dancer. The crazy plot involves him conveniently trapped back in the USSR and stuck withapparently the lone African American to ever defect to the Soviet Union (tap dancer Hines,who went on to a more successful oddball buddy movie pairing with Billy Crystal in RunningScared). Costars Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini fared better, as did Lionel Richie'stheme song "Say You Say Me".

  3. James Caan and Mandy Patinkin, ALIEN NATION (1988). Thissci fi cop movie was a modest hit, even inspiring a television series, but it's a mystery why thecasting director thought that soft-spoken Broadway singer Patinkin - who had acquitted himself wellas the swashbuckling Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride a year earlier - would make notonly a good reptilian alien, but a good foil to bigoted human policeman Caan.

  4. Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty, STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT(1992). Do I really need to say anything about this?

  5. George Burns and John Denver, OH GOD! (1977). Thisexistentialist comedy was a big hit in its time, and it still holds up well today. But let's faceit: while casting comedian Burns as God was an inspired idea, casting nerdy country/popsinger Denver as anything was just... weird. (It was his only starring role in atheatrical feature.) Though I must say, if you need to fill the role of a humble grocery storemanager and you only have international music superstars to choose from, John Denver is your man.

  6. Whoopi Goldberg and Jim Belushi, HOMER AND EDDIE (1989).Knowing that somebody actually made a movie with Belushi as a retarded man and Goldberg as apsychopath who helps him find his dying father almost makes me lose all hope.

  7. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman, DOUBLE TEAM(1997). What's saddest about Double Team is not that it provided the talent-freebasketball player/media whore Rodman yet more exposure, but that it was to be the Hollywoodbreakthrough for the amazing Hong Kong director Tsui Hark. No dice: after helming one more Van Dammedud, he returned to his homeland with his tail between his legs.

  8. Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis, THE STING II (1983). Thereis a certain subgenre of film, that of the sequel to a big movie where the original stars refuseto return and are thus replaced by whomever the producers can get. Think of Grease 2, witha pre-fame Michelle Pfeiffer and a never-famous Maxwell Caulfield subbing for Olivia Newton-Johnand John Travolta, or of The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, where even the B-list actorsof the original, John Goodman and Rick Moranis, bowed out and were replaced by D-listers Mark Addy(the fat guy from The Full Monty) and Stephen Baldwin. And then there is The StingII, where Paul Newman and Robert Redford's chemistry was not quite beaten by that of along-past-his-prime Jackie Gleason and curly-haired '70s country singer Mac Davis.

  9. Walter Matthau and Robin Williams, THE SURVIVORS (1983).Folks, I'm only listing the first nine movies that come to my head. The very existence of thisbomb, which matched up the laconic, underrated Matthau with the hyperactive, overrated Williams(pitted against a villain played by country singer Jerry Reed, no less!), hints that, after somedigging through the archives, one might come up with dozens of other examples of misguided buddycasting. Suggestions are welcome.

Copyright © Mark Tapio Kines 2011