![]() There’s never been a broader target for satire than rock-and-roll musicians or the rockumentaries they stumble through under the influence of god-knows-what, and the killer comedy quartet of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Rob Reiner hit one bullseye after another in this one-time cult favorite that is now one of the most quoted films of all time. ![]() ![]() Extra special praise to Richard Dimitri, whose Roman Moronie would’ve ensured the film an R-rating if his profanity-laced tirades weren’t as mangled as the rest of his English. It does get dirty (inexplicably so with the “Enlarged Scrotum Syndrome” sequence), but it glides by on the daffy charm of Michael Keaton and Marilu Henner. Though the film arrived a year after Brian De Palma’s “Scarface”, it’s neck-deep in references to Cagney-era wiseguy business, to the quaint extent that it often feels like an extended “Carol Burnett Show” sketch. Or maybe they just respected Amy Heckerling’s perennially underrated “Johnny Dangerously” that much. Perhaps this tidiness scared our great film parodists from tackling the genre during their prime (Jim Abrahams was well off the top of his game when he made “Jane Austen’s Mafia!”). Of all the classic Hollywood genres, gangster films have the simplest formula: a smart poor kid sees an express lane to riches via a life of crime, becomes king of the hill, then topples all the way down to his death.
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