Nothing But Trouble (1991)

Image by Warner Bros. via IMDB

Hello again friends! Hope you all had a safe and fun New Years! And damn it, Amazon, you aren't my friend this time. "Since you watched The Addams Family, you'll like Nothing But Trouble." Lies. Here's a spoiler. This movie is garbage. In fact, it is the first of a trilogy of loosely connected films, which came out around the same time, and they are all trash. We'll start with this turd.

Nothing But Trouble was released on February 15, 1991. I have zero memories of this film. None. I had never even heard of it until a few months ago, when Amazon recommended it to me after watching the far superior Addams Family. I don't even know what I was doing around early 199q. I know the Daytona 500 was around this time. I had just started getting into NASCAR the year before. My Uncle, who was a collector, had talked my Dad into collecting those diecast NASCAR cars, thinking they'd be a big thing in a few years. Yeah. Today, if I still had those cars, they'd be worth about double what we paid for them. The collection would be worth a cool few hundred dollars, but not really the nest egg we were expecting. However, it was a fun hobby for me and my Dad, both the collecting and watching NASCAR. I don't remember if I had a favorite driver in 1991, but I did go to my first race in June, the Banquet Frozen Foods 300 at Sears Point International Raceway (now Sonoma Raceway).

Yes yes yes, back to the movie. And yes, that is a penis on his face.

Image by Warner Bros. via Buzzfeed

The plot of Nothing But Trouble is that Chevy Chase is a financial advisor who wants to sleep with Demi Moore, so in an attempt to impress her, he offers to drive her to this thing in Atlantic City from New York. A couple of wealthy Brazilians are along for the ride and to provide extra comic relief. Because foreigners are funny. Anyway. They speed through this little town called Valkenvania. A cop, played by John Candy, chases them. They try to outrun the fuzz, but get caught by traps. Candy arrests them, then brings them before the judge. Dan Aykroyd plays the judge, who happens to be over 100 years old. He hates bankers and accountants, doesn't know the difference between then and a financial advisor, so he sentences them to stay overnight. They have dinner with the judge, Candy, another cop, and Candy's twin sister who is played by... John Candy. So John Candy does two roles, one of them as a lady. The sinner scene is disgusting, with a subtle hint of cannibalism. Because the judge murders most of the "criminals" who come through his court.

The courthouse/police station/jail/huge house everyone lives in, is located in the middle of an elaborate junkyard. The house and grounds are full of traps and secret passages and death machines and hilarity ensues as Chase and Moore try to escape. They also fall in love, despite Chase's best efforts to make it seem like he doesn't care. I don't mean the character, I mean the actor. But wait, there's more. There are a pair of dumb, giant, deformed, inbred twins. That's right. They go all out with inbred mutant twins. One of which is played by Aykroyd. There are subplots. There is one where Chase is forced into marrying female John Candy in a shotgun wedding. There is also the internal crisis of male John Candy to decide if he needs to stay and do his duty or leave and see the world. There are the Brazilians and their shenanigans and attempting to escape. And other things. Eventually they escape, but not before finding out that literally every cop in the state knows about (and supports) the judge and his wanton murder machines and cannibalism. At the end, this movie has a very random Looney Tunes style scene, fitting that this is a Warner Bros movie.

The best part of the movie is this a completely random scene where a rap group and their entourage come through town. They get arrested and brought in front of the judge, who then forces them to perform. "Oh no!" the movie wants you to say. "That judge is going to kill those hip-hopers, because he's old and racist!" But in a twist that would make M. Night cream himself, the judge LIKES it and even joins in! What a twist! In the middle of this horror comedy, we get a random hip hop number. Okay. It's 1991, go with it. But that isn't the best part. I'm watching and they pan over the entourage and I say to myself. "Heh. That guy looks like Tupac....... hey wait a second..." I pause the movie and hit wikipedia. Yep. This lame movie was the silver screen debut of the legendary rapper, Tupac Shakur. This movie came out a year before his first staring role, Juice, and about ten months before his first solo album, the groundbreaking 2Pacalypse Now. I marked out a little bit when I saw Pac, no lie. Turns out the hip hop group is Digital Underground, who Tupac was kinda sorta with before he went solo and became an icon. The song they perform is called "Same Song." Watch the video here.

There he is! 1 of Amerikaz Most Wanted

Image by Warner Bros. via IMDB

So. How did this movie fall off the rails? Well, there are a couple of reasons why.

First, let's look at the cast. Chase was a big star, having just completed the National Lampoon's Vacation movies. Moore was hot of her super smash hit Ghost. Aykroyd was a huge star in the 80s, and had also written Blues Brothers, Spies Like Us, Dragnet, Ghostbusters 1 & 2. In addition, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1988's Driving Miss Daisy. John Candy was also a big name, being in a slew of comedies himself. This is a very talented cast, with tons of star power and box office draw. That said, Chase really, really drags this movie down. It's painfully obvious that he doesn't care about it, he's just collecting a check. I know that playing the straight guy is kind of his thing, but if you compare this to Caddyshack, you'll see what I mean. But he's just part of the problem and not even the biggest. 

Sometimes, to get the best art, you have to tell the artist "No! No! Bad filmmaker! Get down from there!" Then spray them with water until they jump off the kitchen counter. Aykroyd was the writer, director, producer, and played two roles, including a main cast member. He was stretched too thin, something I think he would admit himself. He was trying to cram in all of his ideas and the result is a disjointed mess, with some jokes that go on for way too long. There are plenty of scenes and takes that should have been redone, trimmed, or just cut altogether. You don't have to cram literally every idea you have into your movie. But no one was telling him no. 

You might be asking yourself, "where was the studio?" Hahaha. Hahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. ROTFLMFAOIRL. Warner Bros was busy. Distracted. Not paying attention until it was too late. They were putting all of their focus on a different movie. A sure thing. A landmark film that was destined to sweep the Oscars and be the kind of movie they'd still be talking about in 2020. A masterpiece that they knew for sure would be the Next Big Thing. What could this benchmark film be? None other than..... The Bonfire of the Vanities. Don't worry. I'm gonna get to that movie, very soon. It's part of this little Trilogy of Trash that I have going on.

Apparently, while Demi Moore was a joy to work with and very nice, supposedly Chase was snooty and mean on set

Image by Warner Bros. via IMDB

Chase and the cast and crew did not get along. So much so that, at least for a time, he and Aykroyd couldn't stand each other. Watch this hilarious clip of them being awkward on the Arsenio Hall Show  to promote the movie.

Nothing But Trouble is one of those movies that has, what I call, "Heart of Darkness Syndrome." Wherein a movie's behind-the-scenes are as interesting as the movie itself or, as in this case, far more interesting. I highly encourage you to watch these videos from GoodBadFlicks and House by the Video Store to get the whole story.

The only part about this whole movie that I really found interesting, which was also a huge negative, was the set design. Aykroyd hired the best production people he could get. An all-star crew that had previously worked on successful big budget science fiction movies. And any idea that anyone had, Aykroyd told them to do it. He also gave very vague instructions, intentionally, to let their creativity shine through. And it shows, there is clearly a lot of love and detail put into the set. 

Unfortunately, the movie also went $5 million over budget because of this. And that's because, like I said earlier, no one was saying "no." For example, there is a mountain of toasters in the junkyard. A great visual. However. That was all 100% real. They bought hundreds upon hundreds of toasters to create that visual. While I appreciate the commitment to reality, you don't need that many actual toasters just to create a non-plot important visual.

"But wait," you might be saying. "Didn't you talk the other day about The Addams Family and how it also went $5 million over budget? Why was that was okay for that movie but not this one." The difference being that Addams Family ended up costing $30 million and made almost $200 million in the box office, in a year when the average price for a movie ticket was $4.21 a pop. Impressive. Nothing But Trouble cost $40 million and didn't even make $10 million back. That's the difference.

Final Verdict:

Like I said, I did enjoy the set design, it's obvious that a lot of care and creativity went into it. It's impressive, even without knowing the behind-the-scenes, and very interesting to look at. And I loved the incidental Tupac cameo. However, the movie is just not funny. The acting is average at best, the jokes don't really land, and the timing is poor. The plot is lame and paced poorly. Honestly, I would rather watch a multitude of other movies than this one ever again.

Aykroyd was inspired by both a real life incident similar to the plot, as well as attending a screening of Hellraiser and seeing people laugh. He wanted to make a horror-comedy in the vein of "Beetlejuice meets the Texas Chainsaw Massacre." This was his first, and to date, only film he ever directed. He would still write and star in films after this though, so don't feel too bad for him.

This was basically my reaction to this movie as well

Image by Everett Collection via Decider

All that said, this is still my opinion. Maybe you'll like it. Watch it. Let me know how you liked or disliked it in the comments. I watched it on Amazon Prime I believe. You can go to Just Watch to see where it's streaming currently and where you can snag a digital copy.

Up next, Part Two of the loosely connected Trilogy, another comedy from 1991. This time, the infamous Bruce Willis picture Hudson Hawk. Does this heist movie steal your heart? Or should you just let this hawk fly away? Find out Monday!