Almost Heroes (1998)

This is without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite movies. Chris Farley does not disappoint in what is his best and last, lead role ever. You will be clutching your stomach from laughter from the get-go all the way until the final minutes. There is no weak part in this movie. Almost Heroes is packed with unforgettably hilarious scenes that will keep you laughing years from now when you reminisce on them. Farley's top-notch performance is aided and enhanced by his nearly equally funny ensemble of fellow cast members. Eugene Levy and Matthew Perry keep the laughter ball rolling throughout and there are about four others who are downright hysterical. This is a must-see film that is wildly underrated and enormously under-appreciated. Watch this movie if you want chiseled, 6- pack abs from laughing so hard.

Fmovies: If I saw this movie with almost anyone else cast in Chris Farley's part I probably, well, would have never seen it in the first place, but if I did I would have given it a lousy review. OK, the movie itself was completely predictable and dumb (not like it was supposed to be intellectual). I think Matthew Perry had't made it to rehab yet because during certain scenes he looks too thin and pale. During others (did they toss both of the leads in rehab halfway through shooting, then continue when they were out?) he looks pretty good. In fact, if you have the hots for Perry, you should definitely see it because he was looking pretty good to me by the end of the movie, and I never thought he was all that hot before. I have a feeling the part of "Edwards" was originally meant for David Spade, but he pulled out.

We saw it opening weekend, Saturday night, and the theater had already split up the movie (and even cut the poster in half! Jerks) with another in the same part of the theater because no-one was showing up. The audience was us and maybe a dozen other Farley fans who sat silently when he wasn't onscreen, then you'd hear us all laugh at the top of our lungs scattered from various parts of the mostly empty auditorium (the laughs were scattered, not our lungs, sorry for the bad grammar) when he did or said something funny. This is not his best movie (he was obviously and sadly on his last legs, but doing his best to give his fans their money's worth)but not his worst. If you're a Farley fan, don't be scared away by the bad reviews, rent it or buy it! The scene where he has to go find an eagle's egg in the wilderness to cure his sick friend is priceless, and so is his comment when he finally brings it back and finds out which part of the egg they needed. Every single review in the media I read said something along the lines of "this is a sad legacy to be Farley's last movie, with this weak performance, blah blah" but I think he could have done a lot worse.

RIP big guy, your fans miss you.

In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Lewis and Clark to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and find a route to the Pacific. Other explorers followed Lewis and Clark but didn't become famous--if you believe this movie.

Among these less well-known explorers was Leslie Edwards, who seemed too much of a spoiled rich kid to spend time in the untamed wilderness--which is why he tried at first to take all the comforts of home with him, including a slave. He needed an expert tracker, but for some reason he had to settle for a man who was in the process of being hanged for drunk and disorderly conduct that included forcing a military officer to waltz. Supposedly, President Jefferson had commuted that sentence, but the signature could have been forged.

The rest of the crew was nothing to brag about. In fact, a number of them, after hearing they would have to travel upstream, wanted to take the easy way out and go to New Orleans instead. One old geezer simply wanted to see the Pacific but got out of doing any work because he was ... well, old. Guy Fontenot claimed to know all the languages of the Indian tribes the group would encounter. But the first time he was called on to translate, he explained that the language was one he didn't know. He brought along the Indian maiden Shaquinna and was insanely jealous whenever anyone would even look at her.

Along the way to the Pacific, our heroes encountered a number of strange Indians and even stranger villains such as Hidalgo. They also visited a full-fledged community established by whites--highly unlikely, but then, this wasn't supposed to be historically accurate.

This was a very funny movie, but whether it was quality depends on one's interpretation. For me, this was quite entertaining. Some examples: Bidwell loses an ear, and Pratt picks it up and speaks into it--for the rest of the movie--believing Bidwell will be able to hear him. And Hunt climbed a tree to get an eagle's egg--three times. I won't say why it had to be three times, or why he really regretted the second and third trips. But it was the highlight of the whole movie. There was also a scene where an Indian kept slapping the white men because they did not respect his customs. Or was that the real reason? And the entire movie was filled with physical comedy such as falling off cliffs.

One criticism--if Matthew Perry was supposed to have a British accent, or at least the accent of New England aristocracy, he seemed to forget in the more strenuous scenes.

The objective was to get to the Pacific before Lewis and Clark. Did they? Of course I can't say. I can say that from a distance in several scenes, we could see what appeared to be two men and an Indian woman, and a dog. Whether they made it or not, the effort was certainly one to be enjoyed.

Almost Heroes fmovies. I read about half of the reviews and I think my opinion falls in line with about half of the crowd. This movie was one of the best Chris Farley physical style comedies that I had seen in awhile. If you don't like Chris Farley, of course you won't like the movie. If you try to take this movie too seriously, you won't like the movie. If you just want to sit back and get a few laughs, then you SHOULD like the movie.

I still laugh the most at the eagle scenes. That is just pure lame comedy at it's best. That scene and the rest of the movie never get old after watching it numerous times.

This one is deliciously high concept--What if famed explorers Louis and Clark were plagued with a band of ridiculous, incompetent, bumbling ignoramus rivals?

Leslie Edwards (Matthew Perry) is the organizer of the alternate expedition, and seems the brightest of the bunch. At least until you realize that he thinks good choices for his team include Bartholomew Hunt (Chris Farley) as their wilderness-hardened guide with experience and Guy Fontenot (Eugene Levy) as the team's translator. Hunt is basically Farley playing himself, which is both hilariously funny and profoundly tragic at the same time, and Fontenot makes it clear that he doesn't know much about other languages. At first we give Edwards kudos for deselecting him, but when Fontenot lets it be known that he'll only join the expedition if his hot Indian woman (she's not a spouse or girlfriend to him, but property), Shaquinna (Lisa Barbuscia), can also come along, Edwards figures that they probably won't need a translator's services that badly anyway, so brings him on the journey.

Levy is great at playing an attractive dunderhead. But we already knew that. That's what he's been doing since his early days on "Second City TV" (SCTV) (1976). What's more surprising is that Perry can so effectively come across as a sophisticated halfwit. Perry's performance is so dryly funny that during his scenes it can be easy to mistake Almost Heroes for a much more serious endeavor than the Mel Brooks-styled farce that it is. Farley has no such subtle complexities in his performance, but he's none the worse for that. He just acts natural, aside from feigning idiocy, as an extremely self-indulgent, substance-abusing boor. That may not sound funny, but in the context of the film, it is--Farley was as good at this stuff as was his idol, John Belushi. It's only made tragic by the knowledge that similar behavior off-camera led to his premature death shortly after making this film. The rest of the cast tends to be just as funny, if a bit underused. For that matter, though, even Levy is a bit underused.

What brought my score for Almost Heroes down slightly was the fact that it may be a bit too episodic. The episodes are all like very good to excellent skits on "Saturday Night Live" (1975) or SCTV, but they didn't necessarily flow together as a film. Taken separately, many of the skits are worthy of a 10--the IMDb message boards are full of threads with viewers citing their favorite moments. Reading through those after watching the film, just thinking about many of them again made me laugh out loud. But as a whole, Almost Heroes seems a bit underdeveloped from what it might have been. This may not be Christopher Guest's best work as a director, but it's worth watching and definitely deserves a DVD release.

I love this movie. I love movies with stupid humor in them, and this movie just cracks me up. How can you not laugh? Chris Farley's one of the greats. Him, Matthew Perry and especially the rest of the cast keep you laughing from beginning to end. It's hard for me to pick a favorite character. I really like Bidwell, his misadventures had me rolling on the floor in laughter, but the comedic genius of Farley had me going too. One of my most favorite parts had to be when they bring the boat ashore and meet the Native Americans, and they think the really tall one's the Chief, but it turns out he's not, his real name's Bent Twig and he's really mentally retarded. I laughed for almost 5 minutes straight on that part. This movie's definitely in my top 10.