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Men at Work
1990's Men at Work is a pointless and over the top action comedy whose primary novelty is that the writer and director co-stars in the film with his real life brother.
The setting is a fictional California seaside community called Las Playas, where a city councilman is trying to get out of a deal with a criminal industrialist who is dumping toxic waste in the councilman's ocean. Not longer after, the councilman is murdered and stuffed in a waste container. The following morning a pair of garbage men and BFF's named James and Carl, along with their Vietnam vet PTSD afflicted boss, discover the can on their route and, instead of reporting it, decide to take the body back to their apartment. Once they discover that their pretty next door neighbor worked for the councilman, they are led towards a criminal conspiracy that puts them in danger as well.
This film was written and directed by Emilio Estevez, who plays James and his younger brother, Charlie Sheen plays Carl, which is understandable incentive to get on board. It's always fun watching real life family members making movies together, but this novelty wears off quickly as the film becomes dumber and dumber as it progresses. The initial irritation begins with ripping off the previous year's Weekend at Bernie's by taking the body back to their apartment and getting in several situations where they have to pretend that the corpse is still alive, a running gag that becomes tiresome pretty quickly.
The only other time I have seen Estevez and Sheen work together was when Estevez did a guest shot on Sheen's sitcom Two and Half Men and it is fun watching them share the screen, though I wish Estevez had provided better story for himself and his brother, which appeared to have shades of their relationship as we watch James resent Carl when the neighbor becomes romantically with Carl and it is implied that this is not the first time this has happened with these guys. The bad guys are all dumb as a box of rocks and there's a character on the canvas, a pizza delivery guy, who proved to completely superfluous and adds absolutely nothing to the story.
Estevez was clearly afforded a limited budget and does what he can with it. The brothers Estevez do provide a spark to the proceedings, as does Keith David as their PTSD boss. John Getz is ridiculously over the top though as the mustache twirling villain and Dean Cameron is just a waste of screen time as the pizza delivery guy. It's no shock that Estevez has only five other theatrical directing credits on his resume and he's probably lucky he has those.
1990's Men at Work is a pointless and over the top action comedy whose primary novelty is that the writer and director co-stars in the film with his real life brother.
The setting is a fictional California seaside community called Las Playas, where a city councilman is trying to get out of a deal with a criminal industrialist who is dumping toxic waste in the councilman's ocean. Not longer after, the councilman is murdered and stuffed in a waste container. The following morning a pair of garbage men and BFF's named James and Carl, along with their Vietnam vet PTSD afflicted boss, discover the can on their route and, instead of reporting it, decide to take the body back to their apartment. Once they discover that their pretty next door neighbor worked for the councilman, they are led towards a criminal conspiracy that puts them in danger as well.
This film was written and directed by Emilio Estevez, who plays James and his younger brother, Charlie Sheen plays Carl, which is understandable incentive to get on board. It's always fun watching real life family members making movies together, but this novelty wears off quickly as the film becomes dumber and dumber as it progresses. The initial irritation begins with ripping off the previous year's Weekend at Bernie's by taking the body back to their apartment and getting in several situations where they have to pretend that the corpse is still alive, a running gag that becomes tiresome pretty quickly.
The only other time I have seen Estevez and Sheen work together was when Estevez did a guest shot on Sheen's sitcom Two and Half Men and it is fun watching them share the screen, though I wish Estevez had provided better story for himself and his brother, which appeared to have shades of their relationship as we watch James resent Carl when the neighbor becomes romantically with Carl and it is implied that this is not the first time this has happened with these guys. The bad guys are all dumb as a box of rocks and there's a character on the canvas, a pizza delivery guy, who proved to completely superfluous and adds absolutely nothing to the story.
Estevez was clearly afforded a limited budget and does what he can with it. The brothers Estevez do provide a spark to the proceedings, as does Keith David as their PTSD boss. John Getz is ridiculously over the top though as the mustache twirling villain and Dean Cameron is just a waste of screen time as the pizza delivery guy. It's no shock that Estevez has only five other theatrical directing credits on his resume and he's probably lucky he has those.