Oscar *** (1991, Sylvester Stallone, Ornella Muti, Peter Riegert, Chazz Palminteri, Kirk Douglas, Vincent Spano, Marisa Tomei, Tim Curry, Don Ameche, Eddie Bracken, Linda Gray) – Classic Movie Review 10,620

Director John Landis’s likeable 1991 screwball crime comedy Oscar stars Sylvester Stallone as Angelo ‘Snaps’ Provolone, an Italian mobster who is asked by his young accountant (Vincent Spano) for his daughter’s hand in this frantic farce, directed at a breakneck pace with a good cast to help make it work.

It’s a surprise to find Stallone in a character part and in comedy role, but he is unexpectedly endearing and shows signs of making a decent light comedian. Spano is full of charm and confidence, and Tim Curry gets laughs as a language doctor treating Stallone’s fractured English. The film’s demerits are that it is terribly old-fashioned, stagey and cramped looking.

It was not a hit and nor was its successor Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, and so Stallone was forced back to action roles.

It is based on a French stage comedy by Claude Magnier starring Louis de Funès in 1957.

Also in the cast are Ornella Muti, Peter Riegert, Chazz Palminteri, Kirk Douglas, Vincent Spano, Marisa Tomei, Tim Curry, Don Ameche, Eddie Bracken, Linda Gray, Ken Howard, William Atherton, Kurtwood Smith and Yvonne De Carlo.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,620

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