Quick Change
Bill Murray co-directed (along with Howard Franklin) this mixture of The Out-of-Towners and After Hours, concerning Grimm (Bill Murray), a frustrated city planner who is fed up with the corruption and venality of New York City. Getting together a couple of accomplices -- Phyllis (Geena Davis), who admires Grimm for his audacity, and Loomis (Randy Quaid), a follower to Grimm's leader since grade school -- Grimm decides to rob a bank, pocket the money, get out of town and take off to tropical splendor. Dressing in a clown suit, Grimm devises a unique way to rob a bank -- taking a group of hostages at the bank and inviting the police to surround the bank. Amazingly, although pursued by a police chief (Jason Robards), the trio manage to pull off the robbery. However, the problems really start when they try to get from the bank to the airport -- which proves to be more difficult than the robbery. more..
Director: Bill Murray
Starring: Bill Murray, Geena Davis, Randy Quaid, Jason Robards, Richard Joseph Paul
Quick Change is a funny but not an inspired comedy. It has two directors - Howard Franklin and Bill Murray - and I wonder if that has anything to do with its inability to be more than just efficiently entertaining.
What's surprising about Quick Change, particularly in light of his more recent mega-budget efforts, is its witty affability.
It's a particularly great pleasure to encounter Quick Change, a wonderfully loose and graceful character comedy.
Quick Change unfolds cleverly, keeping the audience in the dark on the robbery plot throughout the film's opening reel.
Quick Change starts out fast and loose - it gets the audience primed for a ripsnorting caper comedy. Yet almost nothing that follows is as clever, as surprising, or as casually anarchic as that nifty opening sequence. Murray himself served as codirector, and though he doesn't do anything terribly wrong, the movie lacks comic zest.
No awards
No lists