Review of Men at Work (1990) by Danielle S — 16 May 2008

Carl Taylor (Charlie Sheen) and James St. James (Emilio Estevez) are garbage men who dream of bigger things. One night, after their usual bickering about what is to come in their lives, they witness, what they believe to be an intruder in an apartment across the road.

Carl decides to shoot the intruder with his pellet gun in order to deter him. Eventually shrugging off James? protestations, Carl shoots the intruder and they both duck for cover beneath the window. Unbeknown to them, while they are hiding, two more intruders enter the room, strangle the guy who Carl shot with the pellet gun and make off with the body.

Believing all is well, Carl and James return to work the next day only to find the man?s body in a metal container on their garbage route. Carl is worried that he killed the man, while Louis (Keith David), sent on their garbage run to keep them in check, informs him that the man is a leading Mayor candidate so they strangely decide to hang on to the body until they can figure out what to do.

The plot is a little convoluted, as it is easy to see that the idea for the film came from a simple set-up of which comedy could ensue, and then the fleshing out of the story has left a bit too much going on.

Estevez who writes, directs and stars in this movie shows his directorial immaturity as he breezes through the plot leaving a few holes here and there, while his script doesn?t maintain the supporting characters with any depth, as they become clichéd caricatures.

The film was obscure at the beginning and it ends in the same vain. It is almost as if Estevez knew exactly what he was doing in the middle of the film, yet he was asleep during the making of the start and the end.