Don't Drink the Water (1994)

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

More faithful in tone and probably in detail to Woody Allen's successful 1966 Broadway farce (589 performances from 17 Nov. 66 to 20 April 68 at the Morosco, Barrymore and Belasco Theatres) than the successful but now badly dated 11 Nov. 1969 film, this made for TV movie suffers from a rather unrelenting craziness of pacing that worked better on stage than in the intimacy of the small screen.Woody Allen's nebishy lines fall naturally from his own lips, but lacking the distance or the simply larger body Stanley Prager had to work with when directing Lou Jacobi as the naive Newark caterer who is accused of spying while innocently taking vacation pictures while on vacation in an unidentified Eastern European country on Broadway - or Howard Morris had when directing Jackie Gleason in the coarsened role in the 1969 film - Allen comes across less sympathetic and more blindly hysterical.Nevertheless, Michael J. Fox (who had already been BACK TO THE FUTURE in his successful trilogy but was still a couple years from his last successful sitcom, SPIN CITY) as the disaster prone son of the ambassador who grants the family asylum balances the hysterical performance of the author nicely, as do TV favorites Julie Kavner (TRACEY ULLMAN and THE SIMPSONS) as Allen's wife and Mayim Bialik (BLOSSOM and THE BIG BANG THEORY) as his daughter and Fox's inevitable love interest.Since the Cold War was essentially over by the time this picture was made, it remained a nostalgic picture of an earlier era told in farce form with comfortable narration from the late great announcer Ed Herlihy to remind us of the context (Americans believed innocent tourists were picked up on the slightest pretext to "trade" for captured Soviet spies after a few well publicized "spy trades").Written at a time before the Middle East blew up, the visit of an unidentified emir and his harem (that the US wants to cater to for good relations - OIL hadn't seriously entered the picture yet) is played, along with an Orthodox priest who's been in asylum in an apartment on an upper floor of the embassy for six years and counting (an idea which horrifies the Allen character who can't bear the elevated menu at the embassy and can't understand why they can't send out for Chinese) as minor plot contrivances.If this sort of old fashioned humor isn't your cup of tea, DON'T DRINK THE WATER may not go down too easily, but as an honest souvenir of Cold War humor and the transition period between Woody Allen's stand-up beginnings and his later serious films, it's well worth a look for any serious student of film or Allen. If you can take the stage farce pacing, it will even provide a fair share of honest laughs - more than the '69 film in any case."Isolated in the Embassy" situations have been grist for the comedy mills for years - although it's been a while since we've had a new one. Billy Wilder's 1961 ONE TWO THREE (based on a Ferenc Molnar play, "Egy, kettö, három") where a hard charging Jimmy Cagney tried to deal with the love and marriage of a runaway daughter of an Atlanta Coca Cola executive for a passionate East German worker while Berlin was still divided, or Art Buchwald's sadly unfilmed 1970 play SHEEP ON THE RUNWAY which satirized the havoc a right wing columnist like Joseph Alsop could cause in a front line embassy were probably better structured and hold up better than the early Allen play, but they all came from essentially the same well. All worth a look for nostalgia and more.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE. The story involves visiting American smucks in the old communist Russia. A picture is snapped in the wrong spot and the KGB assumes the family are spys. They take up residence in an American embassy and need asylum. Love blossoms and tempers soar--an old fashioned screwball comedy. I know some people say it's not one of Woody's best...and it isn't. It isn't even close to the top of that list. But...I laugh my tush off with this movie. Alex Keaton and Blossom are great. Woody Allen is, well, Woody Allen. It is nothing but a popcorn movie. Flawed? Yes. It is very funny though and a great mid level Woody movie in the same vein as "Take the money and Run'--but with a plot. Watch it, enjoy it, laugh.

Woody Allen's 1994 remake of "Don't Drink the Water" is an absolutely perfect comedy. This film was made 25 years after the awful 1969 original was made and watching both back to back, it is quite a revelation.I really hated the previous film, which starred Jackie Gleason. It made the deadly mistake of taking the premise too seriously. Silly comedies are not supposed to be taken seriously! Also, the 1969 film added about 19 minutes of filler that wasn't in the original play. Allen's film begins with the family already in the American embassy. The crime: Woody Allen takes a picture of a landmark in an Iron Curtain country and is mistaken for a spy. I won't reveal anymore of the story because it is so dependent on surprise.Everything works in this version. Allen himself stars in the Gleason role and his neurotic personality is a much better fit for the character. Julie Kavner plays his wife and has a much better part than Estelle Parsons did in the first film. The wife is NOT an annoying airhead, but a strongwilled woman and that is welcome. Michael J. Fox is the politican who tries to save the family and he is wonderful in the role. Dom DeLuise is cast as a lunatic priest who wants to be a magician.Allen's script is funny because it is tongue in cheek. It plays on the standard conventions of hostage picures. Also, Allen likes to play with the plot in interesting ways and take all sorts of unexpected twists and turns. In his best films ("Purple Rose of Cairo", "Sleeper", "Small Time Crooks", "Zelig" to name a few), that is why they're so good.Now on video after a long battle over rights, "Don't Drink the Water" is everything the original wanted to be but wasn't: a hilarious comic masterpiece. Rent or buy this version now. The 1969 version isn't on video anymore and hopefully it will stay that way.**** out of 4 stars

This 1994 TV movie released to video in late 2000 tells an inane tale of a Jewish American family that, while vacationing in Russia, is mistaken for a ring of spies during the height of the cold war in the 1960's. This is the story of their exploits as they are holed up in the American Embassy waiting for their chance to return to the U.S.The story was written and directed by Woody Allen, who is one of the most accomplished auteurs in the history of film. It is clear that Allen purposely dumbed this screenplay down for TV. Instead of his trademark cerebral humor that cuts like a scalpel, he uses a machine gun approach, hitting the viewer with a fusillade of lowbrow jokes and slapstick gags. The humor ranges from insipid silliness to standard sitcom fare with occasional intellectual ironies thrown in for his devoted fans. Though most of it is infantile, the sheer volume of material (literally five to ten jokes and gags a minute) insures that something will tickle you every couple of minutes.The cast is rich with accomplished comedic talent. Michael J. Fox plays the son of an ambassador who is a hapless diplomat in training. His frenetic and tortured style of comedy is perfect for this role. Dom DeLuise adds his wacky brand of humor as a priest who has been in hiding in the embassy for six years and is trying to learn to be an amateur magician. For him, the extra inhabitants of the embassy represent a captive audience on whom he can inflict one botched magic trick after another. Julie Kavner brings her whiny New York accent and her wonderful sense of sarcastic timing to play off Woody Allen's inimitably overwrought caricature of himself. Kavner is a refreshing change for Allen. We are used to seeing him across from flaky wimps played by Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow. The use of the bluntly badgering Kavner added significant energy to his performance. The cast is rounded out by Mayim Bialik (TV's, Blossom) who was decent, but not great as the Jewish American Princess in captivity.Overall, this was a good comedy that was significantly below Woody Allen's standard. There are plenty of funny lines, but it is a much too farcical. I rated it a 6/10. If you enjoy Woody Allen's normal introspective and intellectual humor, this might be a disappointment.