Three Amigos (1986)

Starring: Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short, with small roles from Joe Mantegna, Phil Hartman, and Jon Lovitz
Grade: B+

I don’t think any era of film can match the comedic talent the 1980s had.

Summary

In Mexico in 1916, Carmen (Patrice Martinez) takes her son Rodrigo (Phillip Gordon) to a cantina to ask for the help of any man brave enough to help their small village Santa Poco from being terrorized by El Guapo (Alfonso Arau), a generic Mexican bandit whose entire crew seems to always have a bottle of tequila in their hand. Every man in the bar laughs at her. One guy feigns like he’s going to help but tries kissing her, so she storms out. Carmen and Rodrigo go to the local church and they’re playing a silent film of the famous trio, “The Three Amigos”. The group consists of Lucky Day (Martin), Dusty Bottoms (Chase), and Ned Nederlander (Short). The silent movie shows the Three Amigos as gunfighters protecting a poor village from outlaws. When they get their one hundred-thousand-peso reward from the town, they give it back because they’re selfless heroes. Thinking it’s real, Carmen comes to the realization that El Guapo wouldn’t dare enter their village if it was protected by the Amigos. She decides to send a telegram to Hollywood to invite the Amigos to Santo Poco to save them from El Guapo. In the telegram, she offers them one hundred thousand pesos to come. She doesn’t have the money, but she assumes they won’t accept it like how they did in the movie. However, the telegram cost is made up word by word. Her initial message is twenty-three pesos, and she only has ten. The guy typing it up gives her a “ten-peso version” and takes out many key words that change the message.

It sounds more like they’re being offered the money to put on a show in Santa Poco.

At Goldsmith Pictures in Hollywood, California, head of Goldsmith Pictures Harry Flugleman (Mantegna) talks to Lucky Day, Dusty Bottoms, and Ned Nederlander of the failure of their last picture being because they strayed away from their formula that has been working story-wise. Harry’s two assistants Sam (Hartman) and Morty (Lovitz) pitch them on their newest picture, but the group refuses (more so Lucky) unless they get a raise. Flugleman flips out, fires them, kicks them out of the studio mansion, takes their clothes since they were gifted to them by the studio, and bans them from the lot. Immediately after, they are given Carmen’s telegram and as it reads, they think they’re invited to put on a show for one hundred thousand pesos with Mexico’s most famous “actor” El Guapo.

This is how butchered the letter was.

Realizing they need their gear, they break into the lot, steal their costumes, and narrowly escape security.

Back in Mexico, a German fighter pilot (Kai Wulff) shows up at the cantina and asks the bartender if he knows El Guapo and how he has something El Guapo wants. He also says he’s meeting some friends of his there so when they come to the cantina, he tells the bartender to have them wait. One of the outlaws in the cantina starts antagonizing the pilot, and they end up drawing on each other. The pilot shoots and kills the man, as well as three others. As everything stops, he tells everyone there about his friends that are coming, warning them to be courteous because they aren’t as “nice” as him. Right after the pilot leaves, the Amigos come in and everyone freaks out because they assume the Amigos are associated with the pilot. The bartender relays the message for them to wait, so the Amigos decide to drink some tequila (for the first time). Seeing how everyone around them is anxious, they decide to do a little song and dance routine to lighten the mood. Dusty goes to the piano, and Lucky and Ned sing “My Little Buttercup” to the frightened audience of outlaws who sing along out of fear of being shot. Thinking they were loved, the Amigos go outside. There, they spot a Tuppan 601 airplane fly by. After they go, the actual friends of the pilot enter the cantina right after. One person makes fun of them, so the two shoot and kill a row of them on the upper deck.

Meanwhile, Rodrigo spots the Amigos and goes to the church to tell Carmen. She greets them and takes them to Santa Poco.

After getting acclimated with everyone and the lifestyle of the village, they’re still under the impression they’re putting on a show with El Guapo who’s “playing” the villain. The next day, a group of El Guapo’s followers head into Santa Poco for some more tequila and start terrorizing the place. Carmen warns the Amigos, and they get ready. They go through their shtick, and El Guapo’s men are more confused if anything. As the Amigos shoot their guns in the air and circle them, they decide to leave to tell El Guapo. They tell El Guapo, and he plans on heading to Santa Poco the next day with fifty men to kill them. At the same time, Santa Poco throws a big celebration for the Amigos thinking their troubles are over.

The next morning, the hungover Amigos are woken up by the bell in the middle of the village. Carmen busts in the room to tell them that El Guapo has arrived with fifty men. The confused Amigos think they have to do another “show” and get ready. They do their shtick and El Guapo laughs, telling one of his men Jefe (Tony Plana) to kill one of the Amigos. Jefe shoots Lucky off his horse. Ned and Dusty go to check on Lucky, and they see he’s actually been wounded. An angered Lucky goes over to El Guapo and Jefe and demands to see Jefe’s gun. He examines it to find a real bullet. Once Lucky tells Jefe he’s going to be in trouble but sees zero fear in Jefe’s face, he realizes this is all real and goes back to tell Ned and Dusty. They all start freaking out and sobbing, so they go to explain to El Guapo they are just movie stars and not actual gunfighters. El Guapo agrees to let them go, saying he kills men, not crying women. After the Amigos run away on their horses, El Guapo has his men destroy Santa Poco, and he kidnaps Carmen. Once the coast is clear, the Amigos come back to see the village destroyed and the townspeople at an all-time low. Though they plan on going back to Hollywood, Ned decides to stay and be “The Three Amigos” for real. They have nothing to go back to in Hollywood. Plus, they caused this destruction, and they know Carmen has been taken by El Guapo.

Realizing they need to become the heroes they portray on film, Lucky and Dusty join Ned. Now, the Three Amigos ride!

My Thoughts:

The idea for Three Amigos had the potential to make this the greatest comedy of all time. At the very least, it could’ve been in the “Top 10”.

This was the ceiling for the film.

They had everything at their disposal. You’re teaming Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short with a wacky premise of Hollywood actors forced to defend a Mexican village and play the action hero characters they portray onscreen in a real, life-threatening situation. Adding in director John Landis (National Lampoon’s Animal House, Coming to America, Trading Places, etc.), a romantic subplot, and evil villains, we’re looking at comedy gold here. What we got instead was a “pretty good movie”.

This should’ve been so much funnier. Don’t get me wrong, it still has a lot of laughs, but I was expecting something as laugh-out-loud funny as Ghostbusters, or even Spies Like Us. With this amount of talent involved, you should be getting a laugh-a-minute type of film, nothing less. It’s what Three Amigos should’ve been but ultimately, it’s disappointing when you take a look at the potential. Truthfully, this hurts a lot of films. Sometimes, I just want them to be more and reach the ceiling they set for themselves when the project is announced. Sadly, they didn’t do it here. It’s still a lot of fun and looked back upon fondly because of the trio, the costumes, and the “Amigos Salute”, but with the way fans talks about it, you’d think it would be one of the funniest movies ever. Though it’s one of the better movies of 1986, this is as far as I’ll go with it.

Naturally, Chevy Chase had some great lines, but as a character, he was totally underutilized. His role as Dusty Bottoms was too contained. He needed to bet let loose to mess around a bit more, especially with the other two. I’d argue that all three men didn’t need to be “stupid” characters to get the point across either. If anything, Martin’s Lucky Day could’ve been the one with the ego and how they’re stars and will be treated like such, Chase’s Dusty could’ve been the one to think things are real first and try to convince the other two, and Martin Short’s Ned could’ve been the same as how he actually was in the movie. However, once they realize it’s all real, Ned needs to be the one on the verge of a breakdown. Though Martin, Chase, and Short played the role of oblivious actors well, the way things played out gave very little depth to the individual personalities of each character. It went for a basic level of comedy that was sure to work, instead of adding more depth to the story and characters to try and swing for the fences. We never even had the moment where the three argue over what to do. You’d think they’d be madder at Lucky for getting them fired, but the telegram shows up comically on time. It works as a simple joke for a Steve Martin screenplay, but for someone like me that felt the film could’ve been bigger, it just seemed like a missed opportunity.

When they let El Guapo take the village, it takes very little pushing from Ned to convince the other two to do what is right. We never get any kind of moment, scene, or conversation to really differentiate each personality from the other. It doesn’t even need to be an anger-filled tirade from the others. It can be an argument with humor naturally stemming from it. However, they play it way too safe.

On top of that, it’s as if Martin didn’t fully understand the character arcs he was writing for. For instance, why was Dusty the one swinging into Carmen’s room to save her while Lucky was the one landing directly in the middle of the action to attack El Guapo? I understand he’s technically the leader of the group, but it would make much more sense for him to be the one swinging into Carmen’s room to help her escape since the whole romantic subplot is about them. You could even have the two bicker over their role in the attack, with Lucky arguing he needs to be the one to save Carmen while saying Dusty can prove himself as the leader of the group if he takes the “most important job”, tricking him into picking the harder role. Dusty swinging into the action on accident and having to talk to El Guapo while everyone has a gun pointed at his face has Chevy Chase one-liners written all over it! Why they went with the direction they went in instead doesn’t make any sense to me. If anything, it undermined the talents of both stars. I liked Martin Short’s Ned being the innocent little brother of the group who’s just happy to be there, considering it was his first starring role, but I needed to see more madness from him as well. We all know how funny Short can be when he is unleashed and though we had glimpses of it here, he wasn’t given the full chance to let loose.

Like I said before, if he was the one who was shell-shocked at first and then turns into a full action hero by the climax, he would’ve nailed it. How funny would it be if he gets enraged by what’s going on and goes full Rambo, lighting the fire under Lucky and Dusty’s asses to begin the shootout?

There was a lot missing from the movie in terms of humor and story that really could’ve stretched things out. The most disheartening thing was that apparently John Landis’s cut was edited down heavily by the studio, and a subplot involving Fran Drescher and maniac comedian Sam Kinison were dropped. Lord knows how much this could’ve changed the film’s humor and help shape the plot development and character arcs of Three Amigos compared to the hollowed and predictable bits it turned into. Obviously, I could suggest larger roles for SNL stars like Phil Hartman and Jon Lovitz, but it’s not like they had the clout back then to even get a bigger role in the movie. It’s a hindsight thing, but it’s crazy to think how much talent was involved with a production like this and it still wasn’t as good as it should’ve been.

El Guapo and his Mexican bandits were stereotypical and generic to the utmost degree. He was a horribly mismatched opponent for the three stars, though Alfonso Arau’s conviction was still very good in the one-note role.

I didn’t mind “The Ballad of the Three Amigos”, nor the “My Little Buttercup” sequence, but I did feel like the “Blue Shadows” song was overkill. It didn’t fit the vibe of the film, it wasn’t funny, and seemed like a waste of time when you think how it could’ve been spent adding additional humor between the three. The campfire leading up to it was funny, but then Ned gets scared. They sing the song to calm him down, but it doesn’t enhance nor bring the film down. It just feels like wasted space. They even spend thirty seconds saying “Good night” to each other. What did that accomplish? I was waiting on some joke to end it, but there was nothing! Oddly enough, it was too calming and felt like a total waste of time in a comedy like this. The added Disney-like bit of the animals singing to the song as well was just plain stupid. Why include something like this when you could’ve added more gags to other scenes or more plot developments in general?

I’m a fan of the film for what it is: A collection of some of the best comedic talents of their generation in ridiculous costumes, in a fun plot. There’s plenty of funny scenes and lines like when Ned talks about how he’s going to use his share of the money to start a foundation to help homeless children and the other two act like they were thinking the same thing. There are loads of other funny bits too, highlighting the idiocy of the collective group. The moment where Lucky goes to the others and plainly states, “This is real” was a perfectly executed moment too.

Roger Ebert said it best when he said that the elements of a great movie are there, but “the madness is missing”. It never reaches the madcap hilarity that we are expecting, despite a lot of genuinely funny and memorable moments throughout. Regardless, the novelty of seeing these three legends team up will always be awesome. Three Amigos will always be one of those nostalgic movies I’ll look back on with fond memories, but I can’t help but admit that secretly, it wasn’t nearly as good as it could’ve, or should’ve been.

Fun Fact: All of the casting combinations considered for Three Amigos could have been amazing. Originally, it was going to be Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi. When Aykroyd became unavailable, Chase was brought in. John Candy was going to replace Belushi but was too large to ride a horse. Rick Moranis was going to be approached to play Martin Short’s role had he not been available. When Steven Spielberg was going to direct, he wanted Martin with Bill Murray and Robin Williams! Can you imagine those three teaming up? That would’ve been nuts! There would’ve been no excuses with those three. THAT would’ve been legendary!