Farley Fits The Part In Juvenile ‘Tommy Boy’
The appeal of “Saturday Night Live” star Chris Farley has always been a bit of a mystery to me: Farley is large, he’s loud, and he’s willing to physically injure himself to make others laugh, but none of those tickle my funny bone.
“Tommy Boy” is a film that is admirably suited to Farley: His character is large, loud, clumsy and about as smart as a cow. He’s an affable idiot, and Farley’s right at home with that.
The resulting film is not really my cup of tea, but I can’t say that I find anything horrendously wrong with it either. Farley fans (mostly teenage boys with overrampant endocrine systems) will think this film’s a kick.
Farley is Tommy Callahan, scion of Callahan Auto Parts, a blue-collar concern based in rust-belt Ohio. As the film begins, Tommy is just graduating from college (think: “D” is for “diploma”) and is heading for home, where his dad, Big Tom (Brian Dennehy), expects the boy to one day take over the company. Tommy is given his own office, responsibilities he can’t possibly handle, and an assistant, Richard Hayden (David Spade, also of “SNL”), whose real job is to make sure Tommy doesn’t mess things up too badly.
Tommy looks about to settle into 20 or so years of genial imbecility when tragedy strikes: Big Tom dies, on the day of his wedding to Beverly (Bo Derek, looking great), a former massage therapist with a son, Paul (Rob Lowe, not so bad himself), right around Tommy’s age. Big Tom’s still warm when a Callahan competitor attempts to buy out the company.
The only way to save the company is to sell a huge amount of auto supplies to distributors in the short time before the buyout is made final by Beverly (whose relationship with Paul is somewhat less innocent than it seems).
So Tommy and Richard take to the road in a series of ill-fated pitches.
Along the way, Tommy also starts a hesitant relationship with Michelle (Julie Warner), a shipping clerk who is apparently able to see beyond Tommy’s double-digit IQ and view him as the bighearted lug he really is.
“Tommy Boy” was co-written by “SNL” writing alums Bonny and Terry Turner, a duo whose film career has almost exclusively consisted of writing scripts for and with actors from that show (the film was co-written with Fred Wolf, another “SNL” writer). The Turners have captured the current “SNL” mind-set, which is a good 40 to 50 IQ points lower than it was in its 1975-80 heyday and transmute it efficiently into this film.
The Turners are also not above recycling some of their best bits: While on the road, Tommy and Richard sing along to the radio a la “Wayne’s World.” There’s nothing new under this sun.
Two things work for this film:
The first is that while the film is aggressively juvenile (masturbation jokes and ogling women are the order of the day), it’s not mean-spirited. Occasionally, there’s even a sweethearted moment or two.
The second is David Spade as Richard. Spade is the smart person’s refuge in this film, which is to say, he gets the majority of the acidic oneliners and quips in this film, which he sprinkles liberally among other more leaden dialogue (the smart person is the guy who has to move the plot along, you see). Richard is mightily abused for his smarts and his snappishness, but this is the ‘90s, after all. It doesn’t pay to be smart.
xxxx “Tommy Boy” Location: East Sprague, Lyons and Coeur d’Alene cinemas. Director: Peter Segal Writers: Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner and Fred Wolf Cast: Chris Farley, David Spade and Bo Derek Running time: 1:40 Rating: PG