Crazy People
When Entertainment Weekly started publishing in February of 1990, 11 year-old, film-obsessed Dan Tebo was on it like a shot. It was the first grown up mag I carried my own subscription for. I read every issue cover to cover without fail. Now, while they definitely softened their approach over the decades (and reduced the size of their movie reviews from 2000 words down to about 20) EW came out of the box HARD! Cold swinging! Every other damn movie was graded “F,” which was fine with, say, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but less fine in the case of Joe Vs the Volcano. An F!?? That’s a top 5 Tom Hanks flick right there....and yes...I have seen all of the other Tom Hanks flicks. Shit, even Goodfellas got a B-! Their initial film reviewer, Owen Gleiberman, was clearly a hack with an ax to grind and no future in the biz. What’s that? He’s the chief correspondent for Variety now? Well....whatever then. In an April ‘90 issue, Gleiberman “awarded” the Dudley Moore/Daryl Hannah mental illness comedy a D-, which is a totally awesome grade if you are me and it is high school algebra. I went to see it anyway, laughed until I spat out my nonpareils, and gave it an A+ in my 6th grade movie review journal. I sent Gleiberman a strongly worded letter and promptly canceled my subscription. Just messin’. I was an avid reader all the way through college and still have tubs full of back issues in my mom’s basement. Sorry ma. I hadn’t watched Crazy People in a good 30 years so I thought I’d give it another spin to see if that A+ held up. Answer: it does not. The end. Seriously though—if there’s a list of movies with concepts too offensive to even say out loud in 2022, this one would be right up near the top…next to Soul Man and the other late 80’s mental illness comedy, The Dream Team. If there’s one useful thing my former therapist taught me, besides tapping my wrist 20 times to stave off a panic attack, it’s to never refer to someone as “crazy.” Don’t worry—I was almost always referring to myself. I’d be like “yo doc—I got a serious case of the cray cray pants today” and she’d promptly chastise me, tell me to hold my breath and count to 10, and then charge me fifty bucks. The makers of Crazy People had no such scruples. In fact...it says right here on the VHS box that the film is about a “crazy, stressed-out ad exec” and a “kooky blonde.” There’s also a pull quote from Roger Ebert that reads “...really big laughs…” Well, I went ahead and looked up Rog’s actual two-star review and the full sentence reads “(the film) has more really big laughs in it than any other unsuccessful comedy I’ve seen.” That’s fine and all but the front of the box bills the film as “a comedy about truth in advertising.” Holy fucking irony, Batgirl!
Anyway, what happens is this: we open at a high-watt Madison Ave advertising agency, where a jittery ad exec named Stephen (Paul Reiser at his most Paul Reiser-ish) is having a meltdown because partner Emory has gone AWOL just before an important meeting. Turns out Emory (Dudley Moore...still wondering how his decade started with Arthur and ended with Arthur 2: On the Rocks) is simply stuck in traffic on the Queensboro bridge. Nobody likes being stuck in traffic...but this Emory cat actually jumps out of his car and starts kicking tires and screaming and shit....cuz he’s CLEARLY NUTS!!! When Emory finally makes it to the office, he tells his partner that he has nothing to offer at the meeting as he no longer believes in the concept of advertising. “We lie for a living,” he protests, “I mean...I don’t even like Chryslers!” Having briefly owned a Chrysler LeBaron in college, I fully concur. Thoroughly mediocre experience. Ok so this Emory doesn’t like Chryslers or advertising. That’s nice...who the fuck is Emory?? I realize the movie is only like 3 minutes old but why am I supposed to care what this dude thinks about anything!? I know one shouldn’t expect oodles of backstory from a 90 minute comedy...but give us SOMETHING! I mean....he sounds really British…so what’s up with that, huh? True fact: this movie actually started filming with the world’s most humorless actor, John Malkovich, in the Emory role. Now THAT woulda been bananas. I can just see him there…all scratching his bald head and glowering at the camera while trying to deliver silly ass jokes. Stephen is aghast at Emory’s abrupt reversal of principals. Says he better fix his shit pronto or else. I realize that what little knowledge I have about the advertising business comes from watching Mad Men....but isn’t it weird that Emory’s ad agency represents every major corporation on the planet? Shouldn’t, like, McCann Erickson have some big clients too??
Emory ignores Stephen’s advice and goes full court press with his new concept: truth in advertising! He’s got a Volvo ad that refers to the cars as “boxy…but good.” Then there’s a Jaguar ad that suggests that the cars are only purchased by men who want hand jobs. Buying a Jaguar just for a raw handy sounds like a colossal waste of money, if you ask me! These ads all register about a 4 on a funny scale of 1 to 10. Emory’s boss Mr Drucker (actor who used to be in every other movie before suffering a massive coronary, JT Walsh) is particularly agitated by Emory’s antics. Instead of, you know, simply FIRING HIM, Drucker decides to have Emory involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. Keep in mind–this guy has shown no signs of mental illness of any kind. He hates his job…like almost every person on the planet who has a job. He’s a little burnt out, ok? Sure, he lives in a giant house with no furniture but maybe dude’s a Marie Kondo disciple or some shit. If Drucker really cared about the dude he would’ve given him two weeks paid vacay at Cable Beach and a script for zannys. Instead, he has Stephen drive him up to a loony bin in New Paltz.
They arrive at this medical facility to find no medical facilities of any kind. It’s really just a big ass mansion out in the woods full of whackos. No one is even wearing hospital attire. Or slippers! They don’t even have one of those rooms where they give the patients little dixie cups full of pills. Every movie insane asylum has one of THOSE rooms! They meet the hospital head honchess Dr Baylor (Oscar winning actress Mercedes Ruehl…one of several members of this cast to have been nominated for and/or won an Oscar), who seems chill enough. Emory keeps insisting that he isn’t crazy and does not need inpatient care. He accuses Stephen of having done a lot of silent farting on the car ride to the hospital and suggests that maybe his ass needs medical care. I laugh a tiny laugh. I immediately start to wonder who is paying for all of this…just as Stephen says that Drucker is picking up the tab, full boat. Man, that don’t even make crazy sense! Emory is shown to his room, where he sits glumly for about 5 seconds. The 5 second mark is when Daryl Hannah comes knocking. That’s right–statuesque 80’s blonde bombshell and lady who only dates really exceptional songwriters, Daryl Hannah. Her name is Kathy and she’s a patient there too…because of course she is. Do you remember when Donald Trump said “I have met Daryl Hannah on several occasions and she is simply in need of a shower or bath?” That used to be the ONLY thing I knew about Donald Trump…before that whole recent…what-have-you. Kathy brings Emory out to meet the rest of the goobers. There’s old stretch nuts and Borscht Belt comedian guy and guy who talks about Saabs incessantly (billed in the credits as, simply, “Saabs”) and token Asian and large black man who wears a bathrobe all day (played by Paul Bates, the “She’s Your Queeeeeen to Be” guy from Coming to America!!). Then there’s Gerorge (Academy Award nominee David Paymer) who only speaks one word: hello. He says it’s the only word he has affection for. Ok then…so I guess he says more that “hello,” Whatever. It’s at this point that anyone who has ever worked at, visited someone, or been a patient at an actual mental hospital should pull this movie from the VCR and smash it into a grillion tiny pieces.
After Kathy introduces Emory to the rest of the cast, she takes him out in the woods and shows him her secret abandoned hay loft (security is MAD lax at this hospital). He’s like “so how are you crazy?” and she’s like “I’m just a little blue and afraid of life and whatnot.” Then she says it’s time to fuck. He’s like…wait…SERIOUSLY!? And she says “sure...I’m nuts! (direct quote). So they ball and then return to the hospital, where the rest of the patients are participating in a game of invisible volleyball (rules: same as real volleyball but with no ball). Emory is feeling so overjoyed by his incomprehensible reversal of fortune that he joins in the game. And the sun is STILL SHINING! It’s still only the first day of the movie! Sweet Jesus up in heaven!
Meanwhile back in NYC, a little switcheroo is underway. You see–Stephen was supposed to send in the proofs for his new slate of ads but he was tied up with Emory so he told his secretary to simply grab the proofs off of his desk. Ahh…but you see…before he was hospitalized, Emory left HIS proofs on Stephen’s desk. The goof proofs! The secretary grabs Emory’s “truth in advertising” proofs and they are on TV and in every major news publication in the entire world by 6AM the following morning. Like…there was NO ONE ELSE in this chain of command who could’ve looked at this material and said “ummm….you can’t say ‘fuck’ on TV in 1990.” Drucker is predictably apoplectic and fires Stephen on the spot. BUT WAIT! People wind up LOVING the ads…because this is a stupid fucking movie and of course they do. It turns out that the American people really just wanted someone to be honest with them. So, in a way, this movie predicted the rise of Donald Trump. I’m gonna go hork all over myself real quick. There’s an ad that says that fat people should be entitled to a free plant…so we’re treated to a montage of overweight people inquiring about free plants. There’s another ad that says that you’ll get cancer if you don’t use Metamucil. There’s a scene at a chaotic pharmacy where an overwhelmed pharmacist announces that they’ve had a run on Metamucil and that people should “try Puerto Rico.” I’m not sure what that means…but I feel like it’s SUPER racist. Shit, when this movie was in the theaters, that Puerto Rico joke was the big hook they used in the TV trailers. So now Drucker thinks that Emory is a GD genius and wants him back at work pronto but dude is living the dream, lazing about on well-manicured lawns getting head rubs from Daryl Hannah. Stephen speeds back up there and tries to check Emory out (do they have NO RULES AT ALL?? No 30 day psych hold or nothin’) but Dudz ain’t having it. When Stephen threatens to cancel his health insurance, Emory promises to work on new ads if they’ll allow him to remain at the facility. Emory complains to his fellow patients that he isn’t feeling particularly inspired to write new ads and they offer to write his ads for him. One of the other patients says “we can’t do that–we’re morons!” Morons? Real nice, guys. Real nice.
The wackadoodles fabricate their own truthful ads and have them all proofed and ready to show the bigwigs by the following morning. What, did they have a bomb laserjet printer at this hospital or some shit?? Their ads are crazy good and Drucker is like “fuck.” One of the ads says don’t come TO the Bahamas….come IN the Bahamas. Oh man…you mean….like…jizzing!?? Ewww!!! So yeah…another solid gold record. Drucker quickly has the hospital lobby transformed into a makeshift Sterling Cooper. And Dr. Baylor? She sees nothing ethically shaky with any of this!. But oh shit now–here comes the hospital administrator, Dr Koch, back from his early movie sabbatical. So Mercedes Ruehl isn’t the only hospital employee after all! I had a feeling! Dr Koch is like WTAF is going on here!? Doc Baylor says the patients are loving their new gig as unpaid ad execs. Koch is ready to call the police but Baylor is like “ummm….yeah the ad agency is gonna build a new wing of the hospital and name it after you. Phone…meet cradle. Rich people love having wings named after them. Always.
Everything is right as rain for a good ten minutes. Emory and Kathy continue to ball around together. She tells him that she’s waiting for her marine brother to come rescue her and that she’s just majorly bummed out every now and then. Shit, if I could commit myself for being bummed out you’d never fuckin’ see me again. The loonies are thrilled with their new arrangement until Drucker goes on Larry King and takes credit for all of THEIR work. To add insult to injury–he shows up the following day and gifts them fountain pens for all of their hard work. Fountain pens! That motherfucker. They ask “what the fuck are we gonna do with pens!?” He’s like “you don’t like it?? You goofballs are fired!” Drucker convenes an emergency meeting to attempt to coax his execs into replicating the “truth in advertising” formula…and they just can’t do it. When Drucker asks one of his employees to say something honest he says that he likes small boys. OY! This movie!! Drucker realizes he’s fucked so he arranges a shipment of free automobiles to the hospital. A free car for each lunatic (yes: Saabs gets a Saab. You know….my first car was a Saab. Nicest car I have ever…and will ever own. Heated seats, y’all!). They hop in their new rides and tear ass all over the property. The Asian dude says “ahh…time to mow down some caucasions.” I laugh again. While Emory and Kathy are joyriding, Kathy tells him that she isn’t bummed out anymore and that she's ready to rejoin society. He’s like “cool, pack yer shit, pretty blonde lady of the sadlands!” But when Emory tells Dr Koch he wants to discharge Kathy, he refuses. Tells him that her marine brother is imaginary, just like that volleyball from earlier. Tells Emory that she fucks all of the patients. DUDE! Dr Baylor tries to intervene and is promptly fired and told to “pack your bags, little lady.” I’m not sure why they’re so bent on forcing Kathy to stay as she has come up with approximately zero ads…but…I guess this movie needs some sort of conflict as it hurtles towards its conclusion, aye?
Emory is forced to leave the hospital and his new buddies are devastated. His departure also happens to coincide with a big pitch they’re supposed to throw for a prospective Sony account. The Japanese are flying in and everything! Without Emory, however, the crazies have retreated to their crazy shells. Drucker is like “let’s see what you got for me, kookaburras,” but they just sit there picking their asses and noses. Drucker leans over to Koch and says “your lunatics look awfully crappy this morning.” One of the patients pitches “Sony….Bony” which sounds alright to me! The Japanese get offended and leave. Koch calls them crazy people, which is also the name of the movie we’re talking about. Drucker tells them to come up with interesting slogans or he will kill them. Before he can start systematically murdering the inmates, the whole crew is distracted by the sound of an approaching helicopter. It’s Emory! And he tracked down Kathy’s marine brother!! And he’s a real ass person!! And Mercedes Reuhl is onboard too…just for shits and giggles. Kathy is rescued by her brother, which is legit. But then they turn the chopper around and rescue every other patient from the hospital, breaking every single law that exists and a few laws that haven’t even been thought of yet. Seriously, it’s the most overloaded helicopter since the one that pulled the Stones out of Altamont.
In a little denouement, we learn that the crew reassembled to make an ad for Sony….and it’s THIS: “Asians do better work because they are short and their eyes are closer to the product. Caucasians: they’re just too damn tall.” ROLL CREDITS!! You know, I’m thinking maybe Owen Glieberman was actually too generous. I’d give this flick an F+. HELLO! The end..