Brewster's Millions Reviews

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Walter Hill, I thought I might as well check it out. When I think of Walter Hill, I think of some rather badass action flicks so I was not really convinced by the idea of this guy directing a comedy, especially with a seemingly lame concept. Basically, I was pretty sure it would be seriously weak. Well, to my surprise, I have to admit that the damned thing was not so bad at all after all. Indeed, it worked most of all because it was a wacky comedy which was fully aware of its wacky concept. On top of that, it had been years since I saw a movie starring Richard Pryor and the guy was a perfect choice to play the main character. To be honest, John Candy didn’t get much to do but he was also pretty much pitch-perfect as the sidekick (the name of his character, Spike Nolan, was also pure gold and, for some reasons, he made me think of what the illegitimate son of Spike Lee and Christophe Nolan would look like). Coming back to the movie itself, to be honest, losing 30 millions of dollars is not that hard actually. I mean, just buying this rare stamp (and using it) cost him already more than 1 million and it took him only 5 mins. However, it wasn’t the point of this movie. As pointed out by Brewster himself, the point was just to see if he could do it and, above all, have some fun in the process and I think it was pretty neat to see that, after all that happened to him, Brewster remained the same man. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was definitely not a masterpiece whatsoever, it was still a decent comedy and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Walter Hill, usually known for exciting action-dramas that border on both gritty and cheesy, was signed on to direct the comedy Brewster's Millions, which was a remake of the 1945 comedy with the same name and plot, both based off of a book. A comedy classic? Yes, but I just can't wrap my head around it. In a nutshell, "Try to spend $30,000,000 in 30 days, but don't show any assets or splurge it all, and don't tell anybody about it. If you succeed, you get $300,000,000." Even though it's a classic comedy, it's rather easy to get lost in Brewster's predicament, so bottom line, I consider this a triple-C movie- classic confusing comedy.

My rating: 5/10