Review of Monkey Trouble (1994) by Mickey M — 27 Jul 2008

"Fingers" (Finster) is a trained monkey who pick pockets unsuspecting victims on the California Boardwalk. He works with "Azro" (Harvey Keitel), who is not nice to the monkey. "Azro" and "Fingers" get hired by a guy who may be a Mob boss who wants to use the monkey's abilities, but the monkey escapes from "Azro" -- after leaving him a "note".

"Eva" (Thora Birch) is a young lady from a broken home. She can't stand her younger half-brother, and loves animals. She begs her mother (Mimi Rogers) for a pet, but doesn't get her way -- until "Fingers" comes into her life.

And with "Fingers", whom she renames "Dodger" after her favorite professional baseball team, "Azro" is not far behind -- and that's only because he wants his monkey back.

This film is more for kids than adults. Kids will get a laugh a lot more at the jokes than the grown-ups, who will probably find the comedic situations pretty predictable. In fact, there could have been more comedic moments in this movie, but there isn't. But the comedic moments is chuckle worthy -- if you are an adult.

Most of the adult cast is very underused in this film. There is also little development with the adult characters. The majority of the adults are just there to advance the plot. Now that I think about it, the human cast acted as if they didn't care about putting their best effort into their performances, and were only there to make a quick buck.

Out of the entire cast, Finster stands out the most. Birch is the only human who is pretty watchable, and slowly improves her performance as the movie advances.

When it comes to wardrobe and scenery, nothing really stands out that much at all. You can pretty much tell what took budget cuts.

The cinematography is not good, with the exeption of a fair chase scene. It is pretty obvious that this movie is pretty low budget, and they decided to make what is see a major budget cut.

Out of all the wardrobes, Keitel's was the most unique because it was the one with the most worn-in look. In fact, I don't think he changed his outfit at all in this movie. The rest of the cast had wardrobes that didn't stand out.

The script is very formulaic. I have seen this movie before, with a different species as the feature animal. I've also seen this plot done much better.

If you ask me, only rent this one if you have kids. Or, better yet, plunk your kids down in front of the television if this movie is on HBO or the Free Movie section of On Demand.