The Out-of-Towners - 'Towners' Plays As Likable Lightweight

 ((COMEDY))

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At once warmer and rowdier than its 1970 predecessor, Sam Weisman's updated remake of "The Out-of-Towners" is a pleasantly amusing comedy that showcases first-rate comic thesping and nimble slapstick shtick by Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. Working from Marc Lawrence's more soft-hearted rewrite of Neil Simon's original screenplay, Weisman and his well-cast leads go through their paces with solid professionalism, resulting in a lightweight but likable entertainment that should attract a respectable number of adult mainstream ticketbuyers.

In the original version, directed by Arthur Hiller, Jack Lemmon and the late Sandy Dennis played an Ohio couple who endure a series of seriocomic disasters when they visit New York City during an ill-starred business trip. The husband, a sales executive eager for a promotion, is to be interviewed for a job transfer at his firm's Manhattan office. By pic's end, however, he and his wife are defeated by the rigors of life in a city where garbage and transit strikes, not to mention muggers and overcrowded hotels, make small-town Ohio seem much more appealing.While remaining true to the basic outline of Simon's script, screenwriter Lawrence --- fresh from his "Forces of Nature" success --- puts his own imprint on the material, changing everything from the age of lead characters to the overall tone of the story. This "Out-of-Towners" offers a more affectionately romanticized view of Manhattan, even as the remake provides just as much reason for the Ohio visitors to have second thoughts about relocating there.

Martin and Hawn play Henry and Nancy Clark, a long-married couple forced to cope with the empty-nest blues after their youngest child (Oliver Hudson, Hawn's real-life son) jets off to college. Henry is an Ohio advertising exec --- or, rather, he was an advertising exec. The victim of corporate downsizing, Henry is newly unemployed, a fact he has concealed from Nancy. Henry also hides the intensity of his anxiety when he's beckoned to New York for a job interview.

Faced with the prospect of being all alone in their big suburban home for the first time in their marriage, Nancy decides to accompany Henry on his New York trip. Right from the start, things go wrong, and they keep getting worse. Because of heavy fog in New York, the Clarks' plane is re-routed to Boston. Then , in rapid succession, the couple miss a Manhattan-bound train, wreck their rented car in the Fulton Fish Market and naively trust a stranger who turns out to be a mugger. They are left with only one credit card when they try to check into a luxury hotel.

Unfortunately, their daughter --- a med school dropout turned would-be actress --- has maxed out the card to buy furniture. The hotel's smarmy manager, hilariously played by John Cleese in his Basil Fawlty mode, refuses to give them a room while they wait for the arrival of their luggage.

Hunger and frustration lead the Clarks to desperate extremes. Nancy seductively approaches a hotel bar patron (Mark McKinney), hoping to gain access to his room and, more important, room service. But when the guy (a younger man, by the way) returns unexpectedly early with romance on his mind, the Clarks must take flight.Reteamed for the first time since "HouseSitter" (1992), Hawn and Martin provide ample amusement but few surprises. Martin occasionally comes across as though he's ready for "Father of the Bride, Part 3," while Hawn seems only slightly less sprightly than usual. Even so, while neither actor breaks much new ground, both are surprisingly affecting as their characters express nervous trepidation about the brave new world of life after 45. (They're at least a decade or so older than the couple played by Lemmon and Dennis in the first "Out-of-Towners.") They also have several opportunities to demonstrate their graceful talent for physical comedy.

To a large degree, the new and improved "Out-of-Towners" is aimed squarely at aging baby boomers who, like the Clarks, are facing the future with equal measures of optimism and dread. The remake is aggressively upbeat --- the Clarks don't merely survive, they thrive in the Big Apple --- and indicates that the quality of life in Manhattan has drastically improved since 1970. Maybe that's why New York mayor Rudy Giuliani agreed to appear as himself in a cameo role.

Tech credits are average. It's worth noting that, in her close-ups, Hawn is flatteringly but distractingly photographed by lenser John Bailey in conspicuously soft focus. Talk about gilding the lily.

Camera (color), John Bailey; editor, Kent Beyda; music , Marc Shaiman; production designer, Ken Adam; art directors, William F. O'Brien , Charley Beal; set decorators, Kathryn Peters, Marvin March, George DeTitta; costume designer, Ann Roth; sound (Dolby Digital), David Kelson; associate producer, Philip E. Thomas; assistant director, Amy Lauritsen; casting, Ilene Starger. Reviewed at Cinemark Tinseltown USA Westchase, Houston, March 24, 1999. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 92 MIN.
 

 

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