TheRetroCritic

Here's the video version of my Quick Change review.

There's the Bill Murray films everyone knows and then there's Quick Change , a comedy from 1990 co-directed by and starring the actor as a bank robber trying to get to the airport with his girlfriend and brother only to find that New York is not the easiest place to manoeuvre through. The film was critically lauded upon its release but it wasn't a big box-office hit so people tend to forget about it entirely. Which is a shame since this is probably one of Bill Murray's very best performances and movies. We first meet him dressed up like a clown holding a bunch of balloons as he enters a bank and holds a group of people hostage at gunpoint. After robbing the place, he escapes and reunites with his partners in crime as they set off with the loot towards the airport. Unfortunately for Grimm (Murray), Phyllis (Geena Davis) and Loomis (Randy Quaid) they keep getting delayed in increasingly frustrating ways whether it's Phil Hartman confusing them for burglars, gett

New York gets a bad rep. So much so that back in 1981 John Carpenter pictured a Manhattan so run down and chaotic that it was set in the dystopian future of *dramatic sting* 1997 when the U.S. decided to turn the whole island into a prison complete with big walls surrounding it, armed guards everywhere, mined bridges and friendly cabbies. Unfortunately, when rebels send Air Force One crashing into the city and steal the president (who managed to land in an adorable red pod), Lee Van Cleef's intense police chief is forced to hire the help of a tough renegade called Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell in a career-defining role) who walks like a badass and speaks like Batman in order to find the president and bring him back safely for an important summit. Although Cleef doesn't so much "hire" him as he does inject him with a deadly serum and literally land him in one tricky situation to say the least with some fancy electronic bracelet and a walkie-talkie. There, he encou

Yes, "Snake Is Back". But this time: it ain't New York. That Escape From New York is, to this day, still seen as a sci-fi cult classic and Escape From L.A. remains something of a joke is hardly shocking. After all, this is mostly what this sequel/remake is, right?  A joke? I mean, luckily everyone involved seems to be in on it but it's the kind of thing that audiences just wouldn't necessarily get. Evil Dead II , for example, was essentially a remake of the first film, and a parody of it to a certain extent, but right off the bat, the sequel obviously had a very different, jokey vibe, plus it was a good, really entertaining movie so it worked. Here, it feels like the movie is taking the piss of itself but it's not really clear why so it just ends up being an altogether random experience. Especially since Escape From L.A. is basically a messier retread of the original plot-wise. And I think that's what kills the flick. Don'