Review of The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) by R.c. K — 16 Oct 2008

How does one review a plotless series of spoof and parody sketches? Not easily, I can tell you that.

If you know Airplane!, The Naked Gun and Police Squad! (or Top Secret! or a handful of other films) then you know the kind of humour on display here, because this, too, is written by "ZAZ"--David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. This is prior to their directorial careers (at least in film) and is in fact helmed by none other than John Landis (so yes, you can expect a "See You Next Wednesday). It wouldn't be fair to describe most of the sketches, because few are long enough to be able to write anything without giving away the gag, which is the whole point. It can be noted, though, what (in general) is parodied, which is largely (as one expects) 70s pop culture. Television, commercials, films (both mainstream and even pornographic and blaxploitation) and more films, commercials and television. Around both edges (beginning and end, I mean) we have a sort of "wraparound" of a fake "Eyewitness News," jumping on the "Film at 11" bumpers and other largely expected phrases from news crews. We have commercials about companies like oil-magnate Argon, or the board game "Scot Free," and high school science films ("Zinc Oxide and You"), public service announcements ("United Appeal for the Dead") and so on. As is always the case with Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, some jokes work and some fall flat, but this often varies from person to person. They're all doled out by good comedic actors (apparently coming from groups like the Groundlings and Second City--if that means anything to those of you reading this, as it does mean something to me), who have greatly expressive faces and know how to play everything, be it straight or over-the-top, rarely (if ever) mistaking one for the other and sliding between the two comfortably.

The centrepiece is probably "A Fistful of Yen," with Evan Kim as (essentially) Bruce Lee, in an obvious parody of Enter the Dragon (which I have thankfully seen, so this made more sense than it might have). All I could think watching this was how smartly it was written--as with most of the film, it pokes at clichés, expectations and techniques used in what it criticizes, but never in such a way as to regard them as lacking in quality, so much as ridiculous at worst. Instead of the painfully obvious liquid consonant switch that most Asian parody does, Bong Soo Han (whether in actuality or just a brilliant recreation) reads his lines as they have often been done with non-English speakers in English-speaking films--phonetically. This ridiculously phony approach is taken for what it is--it's already hard to understand and pretty goofy, so they don't enhance it, detract from it or point fingers at it (except with amusingly repeated words). Evan Kim's style (I have no idea if he's actually a martial artist) does look enough like Lee's that the joke isn't ruined--even if he is a martial artist, he's probably not as good, but it's filmed so that that doesn't show or matter enough to be a problem.

Of note are appearances by Donald Sutherland, George Lazenby, Bill Bixby and Henry Gibson (who worked a fair bit with Landis, Joe Dante and Robert Altman--and apparently was part of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In) who mostly appear as themselves (or at least as characters in trailers in the movie advertised as being played by themselves). Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker all make their most visible film appearances, too, appearing more than once each.

It's a fun film though, moves quickly and throws another joke at you quick enough that you don't have time to complain about or analyze the preceding one that failed. I'm resisting the urge to talk about Zucker's current abomination, so let me just put it this way: at least this film put itself in a place that the only way you'd be offended is if you were a prude, instead of having anyone with any particular political affiliation.