Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Summer Rental (1985)

"Did you see the one where Papa Smurf took a crutch and smashed the shit out of a guy with a red hat? Did you see that one? You want to see that one?" - Jack

"She'll make ya rich, or she'll feed ya to the fishes. If she wants you to dance, sonny boy, you've got to follow her lead." - Scully

"That's right you've got my table but you're not getting my lobsters." - Jack

Completely classic good/bad flick here. This was a studio's attempt to cash in on the success of modern family comedies at the time a la VACATION. All they needed was dude who had the chops like Chevy and they thought they could pull it off. And to some extent, they did. That IS really probably the best description of this, a knock off or B movie version of VACATION (where you'll remember John Candy made a cameo at the end as the amusement park {WALLYWORLD} security guard). And there are a few great cameos and actors in this one as well, such as Joey Lawrence as the young son, Richard (Rambo's boss) Crenna as the antagonist, John Larroquette, and the great Rip Torn (!) all for you in SUMMER RENTAL!!! 

this one begins with overworked and overstressed air traffic controller Jack Chester getting sent on a mandatory vacation after he has a freakout in the booth over a fly on the screen. He hasn't had a break in a long time, so he takes his wife and three kids on a dream (?) vacation to a house in florida for two months. Only Jack just so happens to be one of the unluckiest sonofabitches ever. That begins when he just wants some lobster and waits in line at a VERY popular restaurant for hours. This reminds me of going to the beach with my folks when I was very young. He waits and waits, and finally they are next, and then some rich asshole comes up, jumps the line, and orders the last lobsters. Jack freaks out, shows his ass, announces they would never eat where there were rats, and goes to a rundown boat restaurant called Scully's, where they are so hungry, they gladly eat frozen tv dinners without question. 

After that, they hear a burglar in the house that night, and it turns out that they've got the wrong address, and they aren't even in the right house. Jack makes a classic comedy exit, spilling dogfood, forgetting his daughter and the subtle use of an imagination gag in that his daughter peed in their bed. Classic 80s stuff here. Jack tries to take his son sailing and ends up ripping a hole in the rich asshole's fancy boat. Then Jack hurts his leg and misses out on some of the fun. He gets locked out, sees the neighbor's tits, has everyone in and out of his house like its a public restroom, and finally gets fed up. The family keeps going out, but Jack doesn't mind, because he went to get drunk at Scully's and decides to learn how to really go sailing.  

Jack keeps the facade of broken leg up so he can keep getting better at sailing. The owner of the house dies, and Jack goes to settle up their bill only to discover that the rich asshole bought the property and is evicting him thereby cutting his family's trip short. Jack gets mad and bets him that he'll beat him in the annual boat race. They laugh their asses off and then say "you gotta deal". Jack and Scully train the next two weeks every day and then we have a sweet montage. 

We get a second sweet montage when the kids and wife decide to help really driving home the family feel of the movie. They are fixing up the boat to a pretty sweet Jimmy Buffet song that was made just for this movie (HA). The trouble comes when they can't find a sail big enough, and I forgot that they made the restaurant into the boat they needed to sail. It took the rest of their vacation to do it, but they were doing it together. That's what counts right? So then they get the sail, and we have the big race. Why should I spoil who wins for you? I will say that during the credits it shows like a slideshow of pics taken during the trip and you realize they are the pics the wife took over the course of the movie. I liked that probably best of all. Should you see it? Well if you haven't ever, you should, it's classic, but if you did once, you know what's up, leave it in your list and you'll get to it sometime again eventually.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012