Review of Crazy People (1990) by Jon O — 30 Jun 2011

"Hello. Hello." These were the only words said by one mental patient (for many years) until Dudley Moore's character arrives at the hospital, and shakes things up.

It is a romantic comedy about an ad exec who lost his grip on the advertising game, and created some crassly honest ads that got him sent to a mental hospital.

"The Freak" is a horror movie for which Moore's character created an ad. It won't just scare you, it "will f**k you up for life." Somehow, this made it into the market when an agency assistant sent out Moore's work instead of his partner's (played by Paul Reiser) more tame work-ups. The ad worked, sold tickets. The agency convinced the hospitalized ad exec to get working, and he involved many of the oddball patients in his work.

I put a lot of expectations aside when I saw this film, and while it was not a consistently good film, I really enjoyed it. The possibility that crass honesty would sell product appealed to me. In a ridiculous way.

Ads created make fun of the reasoning for buying sports cars, and disparage cigarettes, Volvo, AT&T, bluntly encourage slobs with weight problems to do something about it, and more.

On the whole, was it a great movie? No. Is it still one of my all-time favorites? In the category of implausible but endearing, yes.

Honestly.