Two of a Kind

By VARIETY STAFF

20th Century-Fox. Director John Herzfeld; Producer Roger M. Rothstein, Joe Wizan; Screenplay John Herzfeld; Camera Fred Koenekamp; Editor Jack Hofstra; Music Patrick Williams; Art Director Albert Brenner
 
John Travolta
Olivia Newton-John
Charles Durning
Beatrice Straight
Scatman Crothers
Oliver Reed
 

Aside from the presence of the two stars, Two of a Kind has all the earmarks of a bargain-basement job. Sets are as constricted as those for live, three-camera sitcoms, and many of the so-called New York location scenes possess an obvious back-lot look.

Script's only vaguely amusing conceit presents itself at the beginning, when God returns from a vacation and, finding the world gone to seed in the interim, announces to four of his angels that he's going to wipe out the human race and start over again. The angels urge Him to reconsider His decision based on whether or not a random man can prove himself possible of genuine goodness.

So John Travolta, a self-styled inventor of such inane items as edible sunglasses, is selected as the guinea pig, just in time to find him robbing a bank in order to pay off a debt to the mob. Bank teller Olivia Newton-John, fired for flirting with the stick-up man, actually makes off with the dough. She is saved by Travolta after being taken hostage by a gunman.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1983. Running time: 87 MIN.