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THE FRESHMAN
An unconventional story with a clever hook and a couple of charming lead performances make the 1990 comedy The Freshman worth checking out...a breezy comedy premise that is mined for a lot of humor by director Andrew Bergman, the director of Honeymoon in Vegas.
Matthew Broderick plays a freshman at the NYU film school named Clark Kellogg who gets a job with an "importer" named Carmine Sabatini, who sends Clark to the airport to pick up a package without revealing what it is. Clark is frightened it might be a body in a casket, but it turns out to be a lizard-like animal called a komodo dragon, which Clark learns is on the endangered species list. Throw into the mix Carmine's pushy daughter, Tina (Penelope Ann Miller), who has decided that Clark is going to be her husband whether he likes it or not and a pair of police detectives determined to stop this animal from being the main course at a very important dinner and you have most of th ingredients for an engaging comedy.
The other element and the total reason this movie works is Bergman's inspired idea of having Carmine Sabatini played by the legendary Marlon Brando, playing the role exactly the way he played Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, right down to the cotton-stuffed jowls. It almost seems like a breaking of the fourth wall, but it really isn't because every time Carmine's resemblance to The Godfather is brought up, it is a forbidden subject and the fact that when someone mentions it directly to Carmine, he has no idea what they're talking about. It's a funny character premise that is further driven home by the fact that Clark's film class is currently studying The Godfather, which features several clips from the 1972 classic.
Bergman has a pretty clever idea here and I wish he had taken a little more of the film in this direction and a little less with this endangerment of animals thing, which grew tiresome, but the Brando/Carmine/Corleone thing never does and with a charming assist from Matthew Broderick, makes this film well worth your time.
An unconventional story with a clever hook and a couple of charming lead performances make the 1990 comedy The Freshman worth checking out...a breezy comedy premise that is mined for a lot of humor by director Andrew Bergman, the director of Honeymoon in Vegas.
Matthew Broderick plays a freshman at the NYU film school named Clark Kellogg who gets a job with an "importer" named Carmine Sabatini, who sends Clark to the airport to pick up a package without revealing what it is. Clark is frightened it might be a body in a casket, but it turns out to be a lizard-like animal called a komodo dragon, which Clark learns is on the endangered species list. Throw into the mix Carmine's pushy daughter, Tina (Penelope Ann Miller), who has decided that Clark is going to be her husband whether he likes it or not and a pair of police detectives determined to stop this animal from being the main course at a very important dinner and you have most of th ingredients for an engaging comedy.
The other element and the total reason this movie works is Bergman's inspired idea of having Carmine Sabatini played by the legendary Marlon Brando, playing the role exactly the way he played Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, right down to the cotton-stuffed jowls. It almost seems like a breaking of the fourth wall, but it really isn't because every time Carmine's resemblance to The Godfather is brought up, it is a forbidden subject and the fact that when someone mentions it directly to Carmine, he has no idea what they're talking about. It's a funny character premise that is further driven home by the fact that Clark's film class is currently studying The Godfather, which features several clips from the 1972 classic.
Bergman has a pretty clever idea here and I wish he had taken a little more of the film in this direction and a little less with this endangerment of animals thing, which grew tiresome, but the Brando/Carmine/Corleone thing never does and with a charming assist from Matthew Broderick, makes this film well worth your time.