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Who's Harry Crumb?

Who's Harry Crumb?

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great movie for the collection
Review: This is simply John Candy at his best. I loved this movie and I think you will too. John Candy was at his prime when this movie premiered one year before his death. It's a shame we don't have more of his work. I highly recommend this movie! It is hilarious!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: John Candy Classic
Review: This is simply John Candy at his best. I loved this movie and I think you will too. John Candy was at his prime when this movie premiered one year before his death. It's a shame we don't have more of his work. I highly recommend this movie! It is hilarious!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I miss this guy...
Review: This movie Works. How it works is not particularly obvious. Crumb digs into your soul (if you've the capacity for devastating honesty, which is very rare) in that he personifies the absolutely incompetant idiot that is there, lurking at the heart of all of us somewhere.

Now, this woudn't really be so very funny if it wasn't for the fact that the other characters in the film (and this is where the storywriting genius comes in) are actually at least as absurd - and isn't that like real life? We have a collection of characters whose real habits and predilictions are shown in an increasing sharp light - and as in the case in "A fish called Wanda" (which appears on a faintly tangential trajectory to this film) their own defects more than make up for Harry's.

With Harry of course, everything is out there in front. He nearly kills himself with pencil sharpeners, goldfish, exercise bikes, crashes cars driving straight out the car yard, but oddly enough, does all the right things and succeeds at solving the murder. This also is a bizzare if peculiarly accurate reflection of real life.

In some ways the movie doen't quite complete the circle. It's a wee bit too short and sometimes Harry is just a little bit too silly, though these are minor points. I really had hoped that there would be a sequel, though it appears that even with John's death ocurring unexpectedly, there was never a sequel planned.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Had to give it 5 for campy, stomach-wrenching laughs
Review: When the movie starts out with a somewhat cliched joke of John Candy as Harry Crumb dealing with the fact that his pants have just been sprayed by lawn sprinklers, you think oh no not more boring done and died innuendo. But then, John Candy takes over at his best. This movie has some of the funniest John Candy moments ever, such when he gets stuck in an air conditioning vent, and when he gets stuck on a ceiling fan and an evil little kid makes it go at top speed. Who can forget the end when "I need a Hero" is playing and John Candy is the Hero? The disguises are hilarious too. If you love campy, you'll love this. Where sometimes Austin Powers pushes and breaks through the PG-13 limits, this movie stays within them ways you'd expect. ...There is also a semi-nude (no breasts showing, but people are intertwined) of the villains that crumb manages to take when he's stuck in the air-conditioning vent. Some things will go over kids heads, other things they'll get. I have to give it five stars for the two great moments that really make the film a Candy classic.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: who's harry crumb is very funny and one of the best movies
Review: who's harry crumb, was very good. John Candy plays a dective with many disguies to solve a kidnapping, he is a complete idoit though. He says some of the most dumbest stuff but it is so funny. ( the niki girl is very hott)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It'll work...
Review: You gotta love John Candy, but no matter what actor you have in mind, they have something in common: most of them have been in bad movies at some time or another. This is probably the closest John Candy ever got, at least until I watch Summer Rental. It seems like a lot of Candy's movies were made in 1989. Can you really cram all those films into one year and have them all be smash hits? In the words of Macaulay Culkin, "I don't think so."
Sure, John Candy was funny. He was amusing physically, because of his height, size, and his appealing face. And usually he was able to use his acting talent to flesh out badly written roles. Such as this one, in which he plays an incompetent private investigator named Harry Crumb. Let me give you my take on this personally: I almost think they made a really good version of this movie, and then did a really bad one, and then melted them down and mixed them together. The result is a faltering, almost mutated comedy featuring some good actors and some bad, as well as some good jokes and some bad. Harry Crumb is a guy who goes around getting into new and wacky predicaments, yet waters them down constantly with his tired, redundant dialogue.
Another problem is that there's nothing going on in this movie with Candy that you haven't seen before, except for maybe the time he's standing on the ceiling fan in a beachside restaurant. Crumb is also distracting because of his terrible hair, dyed just a little too red and styled just a little too badly. I really found some of the other characters just as interesting. Jennifer Downing (a rich girl who gets kidnapped), P.J. Downing (her incredibly dense father), Helen Downing (his wife, who constantly sleeps around), Detective Casey (pessimistic cop lady), and Vince Barnes (a "two-bit country club Romeo" who is the focus of Helen's current affair) are all very good. However, Nikki Downing (Jennifer's sister), who hangs around with Crumb a good deal in the movie, could have spent a little more time in acting school. Most of the time her performance comes off as unconvincing, especially when compared with Candy's considerable skill. Also weird is the head of Crumb's department, Eliot Draisen, played by Jeffrey Jones. That's right! The creepy-looking guy who got busted for child computer porn! Maybe they wanted an element of horror in the movie or something.
But this is still a fairly funny comedy. If you like John Candy, you can probably survive this. It's definitely not one of his better movies, but even Candy's worst stuff is worth a look. How many actors are that good? Not many.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: If you're a John Candy fan.......
Review: You have to watch this flick. The story is actually only ok. But, John Candy brings the whole thing to life. He's a private investigator.... His various undercover personas go anywhere from a shiek to a hair dresser to a race horse jockey.

Truly funny. I've seen the film several times. Even now, when it's on regular TV, I can't stop myself from watching it.

If you like John Candy, this is a definite must see.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Candy, in the most Best Shape and form.
Review: You know that movie? The one that haunts you as you sleep. The one who's lines you repeat to your friends as you sip a pint of guiness with them at your local pub. The one that makes you walk into a room and say that great line "By the cut of shoes and the shine of your suit, you must be Eliot Draison." You wouldn't believe how many times people gave out a chuckle as I did that. Corny, yes, forgive me. Buy this dvd. Keep it always. And other stuff. Yeah.


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