Vegas Vacation (1997)

Director: Stephen Kessler

Cast: Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Ethan Embry

Have I Seen it Before: The film holds a certain amount of legendary status in our family, although not for any reason beyond the circumstantial. Between 1994 and 2000, my family and I made at least four, and potentially more (I remember one summer alone we made three trips alone) to Vegas. It was that period—Chase even mentions it in the film—when Vegas was experimenting with being a family destination. We could ride roller coasters while Pop engaged in what might be called a gambling addiction if he didn’t seem to be somewhat skilled.

Our average rate of visiting the city was so frequent, that it was almost inevitable that we were there when this was filming. The film itself is sort of weird memory burned into my brain, but the moment I looked across the casino at the MGM Grand and saw the man who once was Fletch and would one day be Pierce Hawthorne between takes near the Keno room, dressed in full Clark Griswold regalia.

The legend continues from there. I had all but forgotten about the film and my brief brush with Chevy. Cut to last fall and I’m visiting the parents. Apparently, they had bought copies of the DVD in bulk to hand out as prizes when friends come over to play poker. Rolling my eyes, I got a copy for free.

Did I Like It: The film is perhaps a perfect example of medium ambitions not remotely fulfilled. Clearly, it would not be a controversial opinion to say that National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) are the ones we’ll see in obituary b-roll for Chase one day. I’ve never been that enamored of the Griswold’s all together, so while I can’t share that disappointment, I can understand it. The franchise has certainly taken a step down when John Hughes is nowhere to be found in the credits.

But it goes beyond that. Produced by Jerry Weintraub, this feels like the first pass at a commercial for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, before he finally found the right vehicle for such an endeavor in Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and its sequels. I honestly think Chase could have reached for a comeback with a return to Fletch, but given the film on display here, a return to any character at this point would have been similarly anemic.

The film isn’t without its charms, though. There are several points where Chase seems to be emulating my father. A general audience might find a family breakfast interrupted by a sudden trip to the Craps table to be not terribly relatable, but I’m not one of those people. My dad may not have Tarzan-ed his way across the Hoover Dam, but that’s more because we didn’t really go see the sights when we were in the area. We laugh in my house about Rusty’s (Embry) adventures as Nick Poppageorgio, but we laugh because had I found my way into a fake ID, it’s only a mild exaggeration. “I do not require them” is a line repeated often growing up. A film can move beyond the realm of criticism if it can hit a group of people at the right time.

And yet, a couple of laughs do exist. Primarily they rest with supporting players. Wallace Shawn as a pernicious blackjack dealer is worth a chuckle or two, but I can’t help but laugh at the brief moment we’re treated to Toby Huss as a Frank Sinatra impersonator with a plan.

Funny Farm (1988)

Director: George Roy Hill

Cast: Chevy Chase, Madolyn Smith, Joseph Maher, Jack Gilpin

Have I Seen It Before: Yes, and to a weird degree. When I was a kid and fancied myself a novelist (not to be confused with the various times in my 20s and 30s that I’ve done the same thing) I actually managed to finagle an interview with Jay Cronley, author of the novel. By then he had become a weekly columnist for the local paper. He was nice and enthusiastic, far nicer and more enthusiastic about Mac Boyle: Novelist than he had any obligation to be to a 15-year-old kid who took some time out of his day. Even so, there was a bit of world-weariness to him that made me always fairly certain that the story was a self-insert. Andy Farmer is Cronley. Cronley is Andy Farmer.

Did I Like It: As I watch it now, the thing I’m most struck by is less the fundamental Cronley-ness of Chase as Farmer but that this might be the perfect vehicle for Chase at his prime. You might prefer him as Clark Griswold in the Vacation films, but me and mine will always prefer him in Fletch (1985)*, Andy Farmer seems to be the perfect blend of those two disparate poles of Chase’s on-screen persona**. Oddly enough, when he’s his most manic, he’s tapping into his Griswold side, and when he’s more wry and detached from the absurdity transpiring around him, he’s more Fletch.

It may, indeed, be the ultimate 80s Chevy Chase movie.

*Even if Jon Hamm played him more like Gregory MacDonald wrote him, but that’s a matter for other reviews. Also I think that Bill Murray would have been better casting for the role back int the 80s… I know, I know. Different review.

**The third pole of Chase is his off screen persona, which tends to be what he plays more now. On yet another unrelated note, when are we getting that Community movie?

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Chevy Chase, Daryl Hannah, Sam Neill, Michael McKean

Have I Seen it Before: Oddly (and somewhat horrifyingly, as it turns out) enough, I’m reasonably certain that this is the only of Carpenter’s directorial efforts (so far… he said somewhat hopefully, while at the same time ignoring The Ward (2010)) that I saw during its original theatrical run.

Did I Like It: I mean, I don’t want to knock a guy like Carpenter while he’s down. But if he were here, I can’t imagine he’d defend the movie. Hell, it appears to be his only directorial effort that doesn’t have his name above the title. Everything here seems like it almost works, which is all the more frustrating. Carpenter making what amounts to a loose remake of <North by Northwest (1959)> is strong enough of a pitch to paper over most problems in most movies. Now that I type this, I think we should all collectively let him just do that. He can do it from his couch. We’re not that picky.

The special effects are a unique blend. We have the pointedly retro, as Chase pulls a pretty eerie echo of Claude Rains unwrapping of the bandages from The Invisible Man (1933), and what I’m pretty sure is some stop motion animation when Chase tries to prove to a camera in an empty room that he is in fact invisible by chewing some gum. It also manage to display some more cutting edge tricks by animating just what happens to an invisible body when it tries to smoke or eat.

And that’s where things start to fall apart. There are few performers that come to mind who are more throughly dominated by their ego than Chevy Chase. Hence, any attempt the film makes to reach for tragedy or pathos in the plight of Nick Halloway have to be immediately undone because in the 90s Chase couldn’t possibly end a film without him successfully seducing his leading lady. He’s not very believable or interesting in the role, and in a trend that was going to come up a lot more as the 90s trudged on for him, he isn’t very funny, either. What else is there? Somewhere in that spectrum had to be where he was aiming.

Fletch (1985)

Director: Michael Ritchie

Cast: Chevy Chase, Joe Don Baker, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Tim Matheson

Have I Seen it Before: Most definitely. Here’s an odd moment of stupidity from my past: I’m at an opening night screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). When Frodo (Elijah Wood) identifies himself as Mr. Underhill, I am the only voice in the theater who barks out a beat of laughter. I did this because I was reminded of this film.

Did I Like It: If a movie star’s greatest film is ultimately that movie for which they were most present during their performance, I have a very dim view for any other film being Chase’s greatest. There are any number of films (and more than a few episodes of my beloved Community) where he is demonstrably asleep at the wheel, and I’m not even entirely sure any of the various Clark Griswold outings would count.

Clark Griswold is a put upon family man, Fletch (or at least, the Fletch presented in this film, as opposed to the Fletch of numerous Gregory McDonald) is a quip machine who is perpetually in matters just over his head. Now, which one of these men do you think is more firmly in Chase’s wheelhouse? I’ll wait for my answer.

This is not to say that the film is without—or even manages to avoid being riddled with—flaws. Is anyone buying the idea that Tim Matheson and Chevy Chase are the same build, and that that is enough to prop up the plot here? It was enough to work in the McDonald novel, but I would have liked to have seen a little more-than-perfunctory work on adapting the novel, so as to not let such a glaring plot hole run throughout the entire proceedings. Also, as much as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is (with his Sherlockian streak) a delightful and welcome presence in a comedy film, the basketball fantasy sequence could have been pulled right out, the film wouldn’t have suffered, and we would have been speared a fearful portent of the comedic dead weight Chase was doomed to become.