Review of The Shrimp on the Barbie (1990) by William C — 05 Sep 2016

I like "Shrimp on the Barbie." I'm a big Emma Samms fan, and that's pretty much what initially attracted me to see this movie. Made during the big Australia interest in America after "Crocodile Dundee," the movie stars Cheech Marin with Samms as a guy who moves to Australia to start a new life and ends up trying to save a restaurant from going bankrupt.

To get the money, he gets hired by Samms to prove her father's hypocrisy against her boyfriends so she can get married. Wildly let loose with the script, Marin tries to become a "boyfriend from hell," the movie's alternate title.

Along the way, however, he can't seem shed his down-on-his-luck likable loser image, and even Emma's character changes from a frustrated snob to being a bit more wise for her ordeal. The charming plot seems to poke a lot of fun at the rich, proving it is a bit than a comedy.

The storyline rolls to its end as if it were one of Aesop's fables with the villains getting their due, and everyone happy in the end. There are a few eccentrics along the way to remind you this is a comedy, Emma's horse-loving cousin being the funniest.

This movie is one of the jems in the outer rim of Comedy Central's cavalcade of 90s movies, but it doesn't get quite as much of the respect it deserves.