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Show I , ,1 i Cinematic - fl) j Uefs go to the moms! sentiments l By Dr. Allen Hasson I "THE SURVIVORS" () (WW-4, Ch-1, OC-2, SkA in Rating Guide) ', CAN YOU SURVIVE THE LAUGHTER? So far this year, we've seen three movies that we can really get excited about! The first was George Lucas' visual feast, "Return of the Jedi." A week or two later, John Badham unleashed his "War Games," with two appealing young actors, and a story that grabbed us with its power and excitement, ex-citement, without resorting to sex or violence! Now comes Michael Ritchie's Rit-chie's "The Survivors"! Have you ever laughed so hard that you couldn't get off an audible laugh, just had to sit there and suffer? An unbeatable triple whammy makes this one work: (1) Walter Mat-thau Mat-thau and Robin Williams are the best comedy team since Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in "The Odd Couple." Cou-ple." (2) Michael Leeson's script is comparable in quality to the mile-a-minute laughs on TV's "MASH." (3) "The Survivors" has some good slapstick and sight gags. In this crazy little farce, Williams is fired from his high-paying corporate job by a parrot, taught to say "you're fired" by a boss too timid to do it himself. In a grief-stricken daze; Williams stops for gas and accidentally accidental-ly destroys Matthau's gas station. The two later meet in a diner robbed by Jerry Reed. The lives of the three become intertwined in a comedy of errors er-rors that has the fanatic Williams going go-ing off to a mountain retreat to learn gunmanship, karate and other survival sur-vival skills. This film is a satire on bureaucracy and social decadence, reminiscent of Neil Simon's "The Out-of-Towners" ; it is a comedy of personalities similar to "The Odd Couple"; and it takes a long swipe at lunatic survival freaks. Matthau and Williams were created for these roles, not the other way around. It is an inspired bit of casting! Matthau's deadpan calmness in the face of Williams' crazy antics, together with the not-entirely-exaggerated problems of city living, bring the whole thing to life. So do bigoted lines like, "Shoot their radios! Without their music, they'll lack the will to fight!" As wild as "The Survivors" is, amazing restraint is shown at times, as when Matthau doesn't want to remove his pants during the robbery because he has no underwear. When this is referred to later, it's done subtly rather than heavy-handedly, adding to the richness of the humor. There are other subtleties involving the use of background music, out-of-focus background characters, signs in offices, and even a sendup of operant conditioning handled with amazing aplomb by the Matthau character. Rated R for profanity, nearly all PG variety, and a vulgar sight gag pertaining per-taining to the male anatomy. Most PG comedies are more vulgar throughout, than "The Survivors." |