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With famous psychiatrist Charles Grodin on the verge of having a nervous breakdown and needing a London vacation with his cheating wife (Mary Gross), members of his staff want to hire Dr. Lawrence Baird (David Clennon) to fill in for him. What they get is the brutally honest Dan Ackroyd, a patient at the clinic that Baird looks at, stealing his identity and using the invitation he managed to get by answering Baird's phone, and Ackroyd stirs things up by giving advice to patients that psychiatrists probably would never give but probably should consider. He finds himself blackmailed by a phony preacher (Walter Matthau), and Ackroyd desperately tries to keep his real identity from being revealed, having fallen for the pretty Donna Dixon who works for Grodin's practice.
There's plenty of laughs in this con-artist comedy that starts off on a revealing note with patient Ackroyd taking over what Clennon is trying to do with suicidal patient Michael DiLorenzo, giving the audience a taste of what Ackroyd would do if he actually had a patient on the couch. Joining fellow SNL alumni Ackroyd and Gross is Victoria Jackson as Clennon's secretary who has been having a fling with patient Ackroyd unbeknownst to Clennon's knowledge. The problem is that the laughs come from an uncomfortable place because practically all of the characters are pretty unlikable (with only Dixon saved from that), and Matthau really seems to have no purpose in being here. This is one of those big screen comedies that probably was quickly forgotten after its brief theatrical release. I know at the video store I worked at that it basically sat on the shelf (rentals and sales) collecting dust after the first few weeks after its VHS release.
score 5/10
mark.waltz 11 July 2020
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5896782/ |
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28-2-2021 00:06:05