Strange Brew (Lost #5 of 5)

Genre: Sketch Comedy

Premise: This is Hamlet as comedy. Doug and Bob McKenzie transfer their television show to the big screen as a science fiction epic, but it doesn't go down well with the audience and they are forced to hand over their beer money as a refund. To get more beer without paying for it, they pretend to have found a mouse in a bottle and head off to the brewery, only to find themselves embroiled with a sinister plot to take over the world.

Writer: Rick Moranis (who'd previously just written Second City material), Dave Thomas (who'd also just written for Second City) and Steve De Jarnatt (first script, did Miracle Mile soon after, which if I can find a script of I'll review here)

About: In 1981, a Bob and Doug McKenzie album sold a million copies which led to feature film interest. Jarnatt was hired to write a first draft. Thomas rewrote because Jarnatt had done too literal an adaptation of Hamlet. Moranis came on after Thomas was finished and helped polish this draft into the production script.

I love Rick Moranis. He is a great character actor, and I find him one of the highlights of the Ghosbusters film. So, needless to say, I expected to love Strange Brew. It wasn't awful, but it definitely wasn't the misplaced masterpiece I had expected. And it's interesting to just study the script because this piece was written for particularly these actors under these particular circumstances. In a way this film feels like very low brow Canadian comedy because it engages in all the Canadian cliches: beer, ice hokey, that particular dialogue, and the blinding snow.

It's funny Jarnatt wrote the majority of the script because I'd make the same accusation here that I would about Miracle Mile: the plot isn't entirely coherent. There are laughs and enjoyable elements certainly, but you get the impression that the characters were a tad too underdeveloped to carry off a whole movie. But that being said, I'd rather read this script than that of Saturday Night Live during the dark era of the late 80's. This film is no forgotten gem, just a misplaced B quality film from the early 80's.

Scooby Doo (Complete Crap)

Atilla (Poor, Few Redeeming Qualities)

[X] Wedding Crashers (Mediocre)

Hot Rod (Good)

Definitely Maybe (Pretty Darn Good)

Isla Roles: No main female roles here.

Tip: This film transcends being a small budget 1980's film because it looms off into the absurd in places. Remember how I once gave a tip about keep things interesting, Strange Brew uses the technique that whenever stuff starts to get a little slow it does something weird or absurd to make the viewer scratch their head.