Bachelor Party (1984)

"Hi, come on in! Drugs to the right, hookers to the left."

I don't really know how to say this diplomatically or gently or without resorting to hyperbole, so I'm just gonna come out and say it.

This. Movie. Was. AWFUL.

He Knows You're Alone was pretty bad, but it had the redeeming quality of camp. Mazes and Monsters was mostly the same, but it had some funny moments, character development, and a plot that at least made some semblance of sense. In my last post, I spoke about discovering a new appreciation for Splash. But this? Gah. I don't know where to start.

So Rick Gassko (Hanx himself) is a crude, juvenile troublemaker who has the best possible job for someone like him - bus driver for a Catholic school. After an afternoon of shuttling around a bunch of dice-throwing, fist-fighting, Playboy-peeping eight year-olds (you know, just another day at the office) with his topless hula gal jiggling her jubblies on his dashboard, Rick, having shown no predilection toward any kind of mature, responsible behavior, gets together with his equally juvenile buddies and tells them he's decided to marry his girlfriend Debbie. The boys are, at first, horrified at the prospect, but quickly rally together to throw Rick the wildest bachelor party the world has ever seen. Hijinks ensue. 

When we meet Debbie, Rick's reasons for deciding to commit to her become a little more clear (aside from the obvious) - she's loaded. More accurately, her parents, who hate Rick's guts, are loaded, and are determined to break up the wedding by any means necessary, which includes siccing Debbie's creepily obsessed ex-boyfriend, Cole, on her. At first, he tries to bribe Rick with cash and an assortment of small household appliances. When that doesn't work, he switches strategies and sets about sabotaging the stag party.

Meanwhile, when Debbie gets wind of Rick's wild bash, she decides to throw one of her own, which starts out with a Chippendales show and somehow winds up with Debbie and her pals decked out as hookers (natural progression of events, you know). The fun-filled antics include Debbie and company being held captive by a group of stereotyped Japanese businessmen who think the girls are their hired ladies of the evening, Cole shooting at Rick and his pals with a crossbow through their hotel room window, Rick's recently-dumped despondent friend trying to kill himself half a dozen times, and a strip show donkey overdosing on cocaine. Gang rape, murder, suicide, bestiality, and animal abuse! What a frolic! 

Eventually, the hotel manager gets fed up with the commotion and calls in the most inept squad of police officers in existence, who are unable to collar anybody in a drug-addled fiesta of about eighty people. The gang bolts, and in the confusion, Cole kidnaps Debbie, and Rick and his partygoers, most of whom are just extras who really have no vested interest in Rick or his romantic pursuits, but are totally fine with charging to the rescue alongside the guy who moments ago nearly got them busted, follow in pursuit. In the end, Rick and Cole end up in a fistfight, Rick saves Debbie, and the wedding commences the following day, Debbie's father looking reluctant but present despite the fact that hours earlier, Rick and his friends dressed him in bondage gear and tied him to a bed to prevent him from spilling the beans about their activities to Debbie. Rick and Debbie are then driven off to their honeymoon in Rick's bus by Rick's (formerly?) suicidal friend, who is probably the only person in the tri-county area less qualified than Rick to operate heavy machinery. And somewhere certainly there's a divorce attorney with a hungry gleam in his eye rubbing his hands in anticipatory glee.

The thing is, I could almost, almost excuse this colossal mess of a plot that's about as tasteless as tofu ice cream if there were any inkling of growth in Rick's character, or even the slightest hint of real romantic feeling between the two. All we really get to see of their relationship is a brief scene in which Rick cooks Debbie a horrible dinner and winds up chasing her around with an egg-beater. Rick doesn't grow or discover anything about himself in the course of the film, and faces zero consequences for any of the stupid, dangerous stunts he's pulled. Hanks does his level best to inject his trademark affable charm into the character, but it just doesn't work. Debbie, for her part, is one of the most vapid, unrealistic characters I've ever seen. When she catches Rick essentially red-handed in the midst of his circus of debauchery, she accepts his apology at face value when a roomful of drunk, high, and completely therefore credible revelers back his assertion that he hasn't had sex with any of them that evening. (Although the donkey's dead by this point, so he's conveniently silent.) 

I've never been an actor trying to make it in Hollywood, or much of anywhere else, for that matter. But I'm well aware of the fact that in order to hone his craft and become successful, an actor needs to pay his dues and accept some pretty lousy roles in some pretty lousy films. Maybe it was the exuberance of youth that had Hanx appreciating the gratuitous potty humor and odious antics involved. Maybe it was the abundance of half-naked women that sweetened the pot. Perhaps he just accepted it as a necessary evil. Whatever the reason, I can't be mad, much as I'd like to throw Rick into a boxing ring filled with angry nuns and just let them have a go, because this is a guy who, last week, fully made me believe it was completely reasonable for a man to cast off his landlubber's shackles in order spend eternity in the briny deep because he was madly in love with a mermaid. 

So, my dear Hanx, in spite of your involvement in this mess, and perhaps in a very bizarre way because of it, I still love you, man. And I'm willing to take your word for it on the donkey.