Mixed Nuts (1994)

Best movie ever!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

"Mixed Nuts" is a remake of a French comedy that I'm sure is better, even though the cast here is fantastic: Steve Martin, Juliette Lewis, Adam Sandler, Madeline Kahn, Rita Wilson, Parker Posey, Liev Schreiber, Anthony LaPaglia, and Robert Klein. The producers certainly didn't scrimp on names.But they really should have sent the Nora and Delia Ephron script back for another rewrite. There are some very funny parts of this film, but it isn't quite the wacky comedy they were going for. Steve Martin as Philip runs a crisis hotline in Venice Beach, California. But the crisis at the office is bigger than what people are calling in about. The office is about to be evicted, which means that his two employees, Mrs. Munchnik (Kahn) and Catherine (Wilson) will be out of jobs. He can't bear to tell them. Plus, all three of them are miserable, especially Catherine, who thinks she will never find love. Meanwhile, someone calls and browbeats Philip into giving the office address, which is strictly forbidden. When the person shows, it's Liev Schreiber dressed as a woman.Ultimately the group meet Gracie and Felix (Lewis and LaPaglia), a pregnant couple with no money who are fighting. Their neighbor is Louis, a songwriter with a Tiny Tim-type voice. It's near Christmas, but no one feels very Christmas-like with a serial killer on the loose. Then Mrs. Munchnik comes up against an elevator, a fruitcake is passed back and forth and finally tossed, a gun goes off - - what's next?I might have been able to buy this as a TV movie if the cast hadn't been so prestigious. And as such, it might have made it. But I expected more from this group. It just doesn't hold together.The best part of the movie for me was Shreiber dancing with Martin and a couple of the late Kahn's big scenes.Disappointing. Most of these good people didn't have enough to do.

This movie was, well, a little nutty. It was fairly funny and erratic but overall good. It was mostly a hodgepodge of nutty characters (a transvestite, a psychotic santa, a suicide hotline staff, a very pregnant lady, your typical Adam Sandler character, etc.) and a bunch of strange situations. (a lady gets trapped in an elevator, they are about to shut down the hotline and evict them, the santa keeps tripping over a Christmas tree, Steve Martin dances with the transvestite, etc.) The movie mostly takes place on Christmas eve at a crisis hotline. It reminded me a little bit of Noises Off. If you have time to kill and enjoy a decent comedy-this is the movie for you! ** out of ****

Mixed Nuts reads like it should be a huge home-run. I think most people would agree it is pretty hard to make a bad Christmas movie. As long as you put all the pieces in place and make people feel good and display some sort of "magic of Christmas" concept, you're pretty much golden. Then factor in the Ephron sisters having written this adaptation, Nora Ephron directing and an ensemble casts of various comedians and Hollywood talent all led by the amazing Steve Martin. It reads like a zany madcap holiday adventure not unlike National Lampoon's classic Christmas vacation. The problem is that this is where it all falls apart. It is simply missing something, an x-factor that leaves you feeling unfulfilled and really not having as much fun as you should be having. I think part of the problem is that it simply tries too hard. There is so much going on and it tries to incorporate all of these loud boisterous characters that you get overwhelmed. It perhaps feels more, at times, like a TV pilot to a crazy sitcom than a holiday movie.I love Steve Martin, especially his early work. He is a legendary comedian for a reason. He tries very hard to lead this cast and he does well playing the no-nonsense and almost uppity leader of the hot-line. He even gets a chance, albeit in very small doses, to show off that legendary physical comedy that I love. But he doesn't really get to shine and somehow seems stuck. Madeline Kahn is good but very stereotypical as the shrill and very uppity Mrs. Munchnik. I enjoy her but she doesn't really get a lot of character development to make her character go anywhere. Juliette Lewis and Anthony LaPaglia are lovers stuck in a perpetual battle against each other. Their banter is good and I think I would have preferred to watch more of them than everyone else. Both are very good in their roles. Liev Schreiber probably steals the show as cross-dresser Chris. He is the one character that really stands out and has some great scenes and is such a quirky and fun character that you can't help but like him. Rita Wilson is Catherine, a dreamer who is in love with Steve Martin's character. Wilson is fun and has some great charisma on screen and her and Martin are good together but like Martin, her character is left unexplored and without enough depth. You will spot a lot of very familiar faces in the supporting cast including a young Adam Sandler being the same Adam Sandler he has always been, complete with that stupid voice that has never been funny. Rob Reiner in a small cameo role that doesn't really stand out but he's always fun to see and Robert Klein in an even smaller cameo role.I think Mixed Nuts just simply has way too much going on. I think the Ephron sisters were a little ambitious and tried to cram too many ideas into one small story. They could have focused more closely on the key characters and maybe cut out some of the more chaotic scenes and Mixed Nuts would have felt more balanced. I mean, Nora Ephron knows comedy and romance and even drama and they just felt like a half hearted attempt all around. It wasn't completely un-enjoyable. It did have its moments and has some genuinely fun scenes but I honestly didn't even find myself laughing at much of it and this is the type of movie that should have you in stitches. Its just an okay entry in the holiday movie genre and with such a crowded genre with so many classic favourites...you have to be better than just okay. 6/10

This may be the worse Christmas movie ever made. Plot was really bad, so the brilliant cast had no where to go but up, but really couldn't overcome the story. It is really amazing that according to IMDb the budget of $15M was spent on this rather than helping the homeless. Steve Martin is a name draw that you would expect to have at least a passable script to accept. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is in this along with Parker Posey, but they have bit roles and I assume it was before either of them were known. We have a pile of Christmas movies that we reserve every year for getting together with family, and hoped that maybe this would be an addition to that. I think the verdict is clear, forget it.