Big Trouble (1986)

Truly Dreadful Film

How sad is this?

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, who'd previously appeared in the In-Laws, team up for some reason in a film that's two-thirds a remake of Double Indemnity, and one-third a silly safe-cracking caper film. I don't know that I've ever seen Peter Falk embarrass himself this badly in any film. Falk has no buddy-film chemistry with Arkin, who seems to want to take the next taxi off this picture. After the Double Indemnity-style insurance caper goes off the rails, around the hour mark, Falk and Arkin decide to rob the company chairman, or his safe, or something. It doesn't fit together, none of the characters' motivations seem reasonable, and the film ends by fizzling out with a deus ex machina. It's a shame that Cassavetes couldn't have had a more distinguished swan song than this mishmash. I've wasted 93 minutes more egregiously, but not lately.

I worked on this film in 1986, in a scene that was ultimately left on the cutting room floor. When I auditioned for the film, I met with the director, who was in fact, Andrew Bergman (credited solely as the writer). Several weeks went by before I actually worked, and by that time, Bergman had been replaced by John Cassevetes. What I was told at the time, was that Bergman had been fired, and that Falk, a friend of Cassevetes, recommended that Cassevetes come in to finish the job. I don't know how much of the film was already in the can at that point, but I know that Cassevetes changed the script a bit. In the scene I was involved in, Falk and Arkin go into a hardware store to buy dynamite to blow up a building (An insurance office, as I recall). I played the Hardware store clerk. I remember the script being pretty much thrown out the window, and improvising much of the dialog, which included Falk explaining that the dynamite was need for a luau. "My Wife," he said, "makes a suckling pig, that'll knock your eye out. First you baste it––" "With clarified butter," Arkin chimes in. "Then blast the sh*t of it with dynamite." As the clerk, I apologize that the store doesn't carry dynamite, and end up selling them a hundred pounds of charcoal briquettes instead. Funny. And you will likely never see this scene. Ah well.

This film is terrific, funnier even than The Inn-Laws which starred Falk & Arkin as well. The 'sardine liqueur' scene nearly killed me, as Arkin does a spit-take second to none, with Falk's dead-pan drone for background. I wish these guys would work together more, they really knock the wind out of me! -Mike

"Big Trouble" is a mediocre film. You will laugh occasionally but that's about all. And that's crushing considering the two leads, Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, and the writer, Andrew Bergman, previously teamed or "The In-Laws" an all-time great film comedy.Here the two leads play basically the same parts. Falk is the one in control with his devious ideas while Arkin is the meek, unsuspecting one thrown in over his head. This time around the needlessly complicated plot follows an insurance scam.The film was directed by John Cassavettes, one of our great directors. But comedy is not a genre he handled well. There were numerous reports of problems during shooting. It shows on the screen.The one bright spot is Beverly D'Angelo looking as sexy as ever. Maybe they should have relegated Falk and Arkin to backup and made her the lead.