Weekend at Bernie's (1989)

I love this movie so much

You won't be disappointed!

Fantastic!

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Time has the knack of breathing fresh new life into a former piece of crap. Nostalgia sets in with the fashions and the music of its era, and familiar faces re-appear after we have seen their careers gradually collapse. Unfortunately for Ted Kotcheff's Weekend at Bernie's, it is the same cringe-inducing, one-joke farce it was 24 years ago. There was a real chance for some dark comedy here, given that the set up isn't a bad idea if you have the correct writers behind it. However, Norman Mailer did not write Weekend at Bernie's, Robert Klane did, and he was responsible for such classics as National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985), Folks! (1992), and, most unforgivably, Weekend at Bernie's II (1993).Larry (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard (Jonathan Silverman) are two young, eager lower-level employees at a New York insurance firm. When Richard discovers that an employee has stolen 2 million dollars from the company, he and Larry think they're on their way to a promotion and take the findings to their boss, Bernie (Terry Kiser). As a reward, Bernie invites them to stay at his island beach-house, but secretly, Bernie is behind the theft and has hired a mob hit-man to take them both out. However, Bernie himself is assassinated for sleeping with the mob boss' wife, and with party-seeking friends quickly turning up at the beach- house, Larry and Richard must maintain the illusion that Bernie is still alive and well if they want to party.It seems strange that their has never been (to my mind) a decent comedy involving a dead body. Perhaps the presence of a cadaver is too macabre a subject to raise any laughs, or, as with Weekend at Bernie's, there's not much you can do with it apart from move its limbs and head in an attempt to squeeze out some laughs. And that pretty much sums up this film, raising the question of how moronic can these people be to not realise Bernie is dead? Perhaps it's because, inexplicably, rigor mortis fails to set in at any point and his bowels do not drop. This may even be forgiven if we had anyone to root for, but, as hard as McCarthy and Silverman try, their characters are nothing more than incompetent goofballs chasing that ever-so-80's dream of climbing the corporate ladder. 100 minutes of pure pain.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman) are best friends working under Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser). They discover a serious discrepancy in payouts to life insurance by the company. They don't realize that it's Bernie who's been committing the fraud. Bernie asks the mob to kill the two clueless friends but he is killed instead. When Larry and Richard find Bernie dead in his beach house, they decide to keep the illusion of him being alive to keep the party going.It's a one joke movie, and it's not that funny of a joke. Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman have some fun carrying Bernie around. They work well together. They've got good chemistry. There are some chuckles but the joke wears thin.

Weekend at Bernie's is easily one of the most underrated and truly funny comedies of the eighties. It has a sort of cult level to it, but nothing respectable like some eighties films. It's unsung, much like License to Drive. It managed to spawn a sequel four years later and sort of has its own dark side equipped with certain levels of humor. It's hard to explain.Before I get into the plot and the positives, let's talk about one small thing; some points in this film are hard to believe. Some scenes where the boys desperately struggle to pass Bernie off as alive is definitely fake. It is hard to work with a plot where you have to pretend a character is alert and active very smoothly. McCarthy and Silverman do only a fair job as they try to work with the script they were handed trying to make a dead guy seem living.Sometimes, it is just not believably that guy is alive. When Larry is "playing" Monopoly with the corpse, maybe at a distance Bernie can seem alive and well. But when his wife goes to have sex with him, it is hard to believe Bernie has an active sex life when he is dead. Certain points were not executed as well as they could've been. But it was good and not a total letdown.The plot: Two time insurance clerks named Richard and Larry (McCarthy and Silverman) find a flaw in the companies' receipts suggesting someone could be stealing money from the company. They report the problem to their boss Bernie Lomax (Kiser) in hopes to acquire a certain reward for their findings.Bernie says he wants them to come down to his Hampton Island beach house to spend the weekend to celebrate what they did for the company. Richard and Larry don't know that Bernie plans to have them both killed. Bernie, ironically, is then killed by one of his buddies named Paulie who then shoved heroin in his pocket to make it look like an accidental overdose. Upon Richard and Larry's arrival they find the dead Bernie and contemplate what to do with him.They decide on pretending he is alive so they do not need to spend a weekend answering questions they don't know at the police station. Incredibly self indulgent, but understandable to a degree. Not like they killed him.The comedy is slapstick, but people do not understand that slapstick can be done well. All you need is a serious situation, done right. Nobody wants to watch a comedy where the characters are having a good time. Like Grown Ups. If you watch a comedy where the characters are trying to have be serious, but nothing but comical things come in their path, then that is funny. Black Sheep and Death at a Funeral are prime examples of good slapstick movies.What also helps any slapstick formula are two people that work well together. Most likely, you'd get a serious guy and a silly guy. Andrew McCarthy and Johnathan Silverman are a good duo and sort of remind me of a pre-Chris Farley and David Spade relationship. Not as funny, but a little reminiscent.Weekend at Bernie's is by no means an awful film. There are certainly worse comedies that don't even make me smile and are more like watching a bad home movie. The eighties ruled in the comedy genre. While Weekend at Bernie's is still waiting to have a blowup in popularity, it is sort of full of life in its own right.Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Johnathan Silverman, and Terry Kiser. Directed by: Ted Kotcheff.

Both McCarthy and Silverman were brat-packer b-s who never quite made it all the way. Both may be competent as a sensitive co-stars in a drama, but neither one of these guys cuts it in a comedy. The dead guy, played by Terry Kiser, never made me laugh once, although he does play dead very well, and seeing him dragged around did make me laugh. I just hated it when he started dancing - wow, was that terrible.For some reason Barry Bostwick isn't on the cast list at IMDb and he's the biggest star by far in the movie, and its only redeeming aspect other than the high production values in gorgeous Caribbean locations, plus a stunning female co-star who thankfully compliments an ethnically diverse supporting cast.I think it's incredible that a movie with such a tasteless premise got made, and says much about the wide-open blinding wealth of 80s Hollywood. Movies should be about realizing the preposterous, but ultimately, the boring lead actors and a seriously middle-school-intellect level script ultimately make this period piece from the now-worshiped 80s still nearly as bad a movie as it was when it came out.