Stir Crazy (1980)

Starring: Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, and Craig T. Nelson
Grade: B+

The entire plot is on the poster. Because I don’t want this summary to be a paragraph, I’ll try to describe it with a little more depth.

Summary

To start things, we see best friends Harry Monroe (Pryor) and Skip Donahue (Wilder) at their respective jobs in New York. Harry is an aspiring actor working as a waiter. At some rich person dinner party, he finds that the two women cooking the meal accidentally used his weed in the food instead of oregano. Skip is an out-of-work playwright working part-time as a store detective. He approaches a female customer to not only praise her recent role in a version of Romeo and Juliet but also to accuse her of shoplifting. Both situations end up with Skip and Harry getting fired on the same day, virtually at the same time.

They meet at a bar afterwards and discuss their situations, with Skip being incredibly optimistic and seeing this as a divine intervention of sorts. A fight between two men breaks out, so Skip decides to interrupt to mediate. It works but unbeknownst to Skip, the two men actually come to a compromise because one guy had pliers on the other’s dick to force the guy to agree. Skip goes back to Harry to convince him that moving out of miserable New York and going to bright and sunny Hollywood is the answer to all of their problems.

It’s time for a road trip!

The two take Harry’s broke ass van across the country, finally running into car trouble around Glenboro, Arizona. The cost to fix it forces them to find a quick job in town so they can collect enough money to continue their trip. Even though this stalls things for a moment, Skip has a good feeling about this town.

Boy, he couldn’t be more wrong.

They go to a bar to discuss potential jobs after Skip tries to befriend some townsfolk that aren’t interested. Eventually, they get a job at a bank where Skip and Harry do a song and dance routine dressed as woodpeckers for a promotional thing. When they’re on their lunch break, two random guys wear the same exact costumes and rob the bank they work at. Plus, they steal their van and escape. Skip and Harry show up afterwards when the police arrive, and the bank manager identifies them as the people that robbed the place. After some expected awkwardness in the holding cell with the general population, they meet with their court-appointed lawyer Len Garber (Joel Brooks) and things seem to be looking up…

Unfortunately, they lose the case, and Skip and Harry are sentenced to 125 years each.

This seems a bit high, but okay.

In prison, life is obviously hell and reality starts to set in for Skip. He rubs the guards the wrong way, and they have no problem being rough with him. At the same time, the two make friends with bank robber Jesus (Miguel Ángel Suárez) and effeminate murderer Rory (Georg Stanford Brown). At the same time, they all actively avoid Grossberger (Erland Van Lidth), the biggest mass murderer in the history of the Southwest and looks like King Kong Bundy. Later, Skip and Harry meet with Warden Walter Beatty (Barry Corbin) and the Deputy Warden Ward Wilson (Nelson) about some ideas they have to make life easier in prison. Already angry at the mere thought of having to listen to them, Wilson forces Skip to ride the mechanical bull in the warden’s office. Apparently, they have an annual prison rodeo, and they like to test new inmates on it to see if they have new candidates for the job. Surprisingly, Skip is really good at it. Since Beatty is tired of losing to Warden Henry Sampson (Nicholas Coster) all the time (and losing money because of it), he tells the annoyed Wilson that Skip needs to be the guy to represent the prison in this big rodeo thing because they’re going after the top prize. In the yard, Jesus tells Skip that the prison gets $85,000-$100,000 if they win the rodeo, but none of the money goes to the prisoners. They don’t get shit and that’s why Jesus, a champion bull rider from his province, has refused to participate. The only reason people do it is because the warden threatens to deny the prisoners’ parole.

Skip tells them he won’t do it, but Jesus encourages him to anyway because if he does, and they all travel to the rodeo, there’s a very strong chance they can break out.

With their appeal looking like a pipe dream, this may be their only option. Jesus tells Skip the plan: hold out on the warden as long as possible and take all the punishment that comes his way in hopes of striking a compromise. The compromise will be for Skip to pick his own crew for the rodeo, allowing for Harry, Jesus, and Rory to come along with. This can ignite their escape. Meanwhile, Len Garber and his law partner and cousin Meredith (JoBeth Williams) work tirelessly in trying to get them out legally, with Skip starting to fall for Meredith.

My Thoughts:

We don’t talk enough about how great a tandem Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor were. Obviously, we know how talented the two were separately but together, they can make the most basic story worth tuning into. Though Silver Streak will forever be their best work together, Stir Crazy is a very fun movie that is another great showcase of the electric chemistry between the two in a classic 80s comedy.

Richard Pryor does his thing as the realistic pessimist in Harry. He’s such a great person for Gene Wilder to play off, but I think Wilder is the highlight of the film. Stir Crazy would not work without the energy he brings in this movie. His overt politeness, optimism, and borderline naive approach to almost every situation him and Harry encounter is so funny for some reason. The only outright jokes come from Pryor, but the truly amusing parts of the film stem from Wilder naturally reacting, and it works every time. Wilder has this infectious smile and expression where you can’t help but laugh when he goes about doing anything. It’s another masterclass in comedic acting taught by the all-time underrated star that is Gene Wilder. Watch how Wilder surveys the scene and reacts to every detail the background gives him. For some reason, the humor that comes from it works even though his naivety to what’s going on is almost completely unbelievable. Once he gets into prison, and he tries to voice his problems with the mistreatment he receives as an inmate like he’s talking with Human Resources at work, you can’t help but chuckle at the obliviousness of Skip.

Sometimes, it’s Skip just being Skip but other times, you can tell he’s acting like that for Harry’s benefit. Admittedly though, it can be hard to tell. It’s even better when he breaks a little bit like right before the trial when he’s talking to Len about their case (“This isn’t funny anymore!”). When he asks Len “Do they know I hate confinement?!”, I couldn’t help but laugh. Plus, his freakout once they actually get inside prison was golden.

Going along with Wilder’s awesomeness, we get a classic Wilder freakout moment once the two friends officially get their sentences. Combined with Pryor’s genuine reaction to the judge at the same time, the utter shock that comes from the both of them is so well done, it may be one of the best reactions to a prison sentence ever put to film. For some reason, it still stays with me. It’s that well-acted. Usually, we get a character kicking and screaming or a shocked glanced, but something about Wilder and Pryer freaking out the way they do feels the absolute closest to how a real-life person would react in this situation.

Skip is also the ladies man out of the two which is funny to me. Harry is the one who’s down on his luck and can’t catch a break. Skip isn’t the typical movie-like ladies’ man either. He just does it in that earnest and sympathetic Gene Wilder fashion, and it’s one of a kind. They should’ve played with this much more than they did.

As much as I like Stir Crazy for what it is, I have to admit it does lose a lot of momentum once the rodeo is introduced. It starts to feel like a much different movie than we started with. We open strong, and we’re rolling all the way to when they first get acclimated to prison life. However, once the rodeo thing takes center stage, we lose a lot of the energy and humor that got us there. Skip being tortured and acting like it didn’t hurt was very funny, but the second half of the film didn’t carry the same entertainment value the first half did. Yes, the third act has to be about the escape and the rodeo is there way out, but everything was so focused on this part of the action that we didn’t get anything in-between to either add to the entertainment or comedy. The escape was suspenseful, but something was missing in the other parts of the movie at this point. I think the escape may have taken a tad too long.

The supporting characters were decent, especially Grossberger and his eventual odd couple friendship with Skip. I loved it when he started singing out of nowhere and Skip just started smiling at him, another instance of Skip’s relentlessness regarding positivity working. In terms of the villains, they should’ve gotten rid of the prisoner that works with the Deputy Warden Wilson in general. All of the villainous stuff should’ve been centered around Wilson and Beatty. The other prisoner was one too many characters, and he was sort of unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Give Craig T. Nelson’s role a little more depth and less focus on the rodeo in general and Stir Crazy would’ve been in much better shape.

Sidney Poitier’s Stir Crazy isn’t flawless or anything but teaming Wilder and Pryor together with a premise like this is a surefire way to make things fun.