T h e N o
t R e a d y F o r C y b e r t i
m e W e b S i t e
Would you say I
have a plethora of piñatas?
What
can you say about Three Amigos? To praise it might give the
impression that infantile humor makes for great movies. But to pan
it would be to display the typical snobbishness of movie critics,
who too often forget that most filmgoers consider a fun movie to be
a good movie. Rather than praising or panning it, how about this:
I’ve got a pair of 11-year-old kids who consider Three Amigos to
be one of the great comedies of all time. Need I say more?
This is a movie with a silly storyline that depends on
misunderstanding for the plot to work – the tormented residents of
a Mexican town that’s being marauded by a nasty gangster learn of
heroes in Hollywood called the Three Amigos (Steve Martin, Chevy
Chase, Martin Short). A cost-conscious telegraph operator truncates
their plea for help. As a result, the Amigos – who are actually
silent movie stars who have recently been thrown out of work –
don’t understand that they’re being asked to intervene in a
dangerous situation. They think they’re being hired to put on a
show. When they arrive in Mexico – decked out in their garish
Three Amigos costumes — all kinds of craziness ensues.
It’s a ridiculous situation and Martin, Chase and Short are
well-cast as the boobs who don’t figure out the bad guys are for
real until well after Lucky Day (Martin) gets shot in the arm. All
three actors have plenty of experience playing fools, and these
characters are the dumbest, spoilt-brat Hollywood types that you can
imagine. But will they run away when they realize the
misunderstanding and see that the town really is at risk?
Three Amigos is 105 minutes of pure silliness, although it takes a
fair bit of repetition to stretch it out this long. Like so many
other comedies, this one has about half as much material as it needs
to succeed as a feature film. Once the premise of nice guy klutzes
struggling with danger has been milked for 15 or 20 minutes, there
isn’t much left to do other than repeat the exercise again and
again. By the time a town full of Three Amigos-costume clad
gunfighters takes on the bad guys in the climactic gun battle, those
with a more mature sense of comedy will be long since bored.
