Movie Review: Kentucky Fried Movie

A little introduction for the unitiated... this film is the first by the Kentucky Fried Theatre group, for around 1976ish or something, and these guys where, Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. This particular film is a collection of the sketches they were performing at the time in their tiny shows in clubs around America. Or something, I forget. It's directed by John Landis, which may explain some of the famous cameos.

I've seen this a couple of times now and the sad fact is that most of the sketches don't stand up to repeat viewing. The hit rate is good though, and the deadpan news anchors and presenters are excellent as is the second best performance from George Lazenby ever, in the form a trailer for the sadly lost Samuel L. Brokowitz production "That's Armaggedon!"

And its in these scenes where deadpan performance is used, where the laughs still come for me - the sillier ones, including a trip to the cinema (to "see you next wednesday", obviously) in "feelaround" just aren't funny second time around. As an aside the second longest sketch, the courtroom scene, is just about the least funny sketch in histry, full of the lamest puns imaginable.

All of this is by the by, since they are all eclipsed by the longest sketch, the frankly sublime "Fistful Of Yen" - Kung Fu Action blockbuster in the Bruce Lee mould. Its a good half hour, maybe more, long and contains some of the best comedy acting ever, and even some very decent fight scenes, too. Attention to detail is supreme here, with even the smallest opportunity for a continuity error taken advantage of - there are so many of these errors I lost count (example, guy jumps through plate glass window to escape, moments later his friend falls throught he SAME plate glass window after being shot! By a toy robot!)

It also serves as a good indicator of where the three of them (Z,A & Z) were going - since many scenes in this extended chopsocky riff are almost dry runs of the "Airplane!" style - I don't want to spoil too many, but in particular a good example of this "prefiguring" is upon his breaking into a secret area, our hero blends in with A TOUR GROUP! They're being shown around the base like its a museum and the guide is kind enough to point out the main threats for our hero to disable. It's been done since, i know, but this is just one of the things that stood out as Airplane! style jokes.

The central performance, by the way, is nothign short of perfet, in every way Evan Kim (he was in the Dead Pool, you know) is Kung Fu Comedy perfection years before Kung FU Hustle was even dreamed of. He's not the spitting imageof Bruce Lee, but close enough to be funny, and as a physical comedian and mangler of the English language ("dis is nod a shawwade!") he is nigh on godlike.

The film as a whole? Pretty good actually, the first time - I wouldn't watch it again any time soon - though perhaps I would just for Fistful Of Yen. There are more good sketches than bad ones and you'll probably laugh more than you would if watching "Scary Movie" or "Epic Movie" or any of those other sketch-shows-pretending-to-be-movies out there at the moment. 7/10 cos of Fistful.

I give Fistful itself 9/10 even though it's just not long enough. Why waste your time with the rest of the movie? I want more crazy kung fu jokes!

A word of warning. This film contains a lot of Breasts. Many many many breasts, and two simulated sex scenes (and another cut short) - t's not one to watch with children or the easily offended. Plus you must watch out for the best Donald Sutherland cameo ever - forget JFK - this is the one!

A