Modern Problems (1981)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Chevy Chase plays a depressed air traffic controller who acquires telekinetic powers after glowing green nuclear waste liquid from a tanker truck on the highway splashes out onto him. "Groove Tube" director Ken Shapiro has assembled a quality cast, and the premise generates some amusing moments in this average romantic comedy. The logic between our hero's affliction and the powers that he gets seems fractured. Nuclear waste usually precipitates debilitating diseases rather than spectacular telekinetic powers. The first scene at the air traffic control center is reminiscent of a "Saturday Night Live" skit with everybody preoccupied with other matters than the aircraft they are supervising in the skies above New York City. After Max (Chevy Chase of "Foul Play") gets off duty and heads home, our ill-fated protagonist has to contend with mechanical problems with his car. First, he retracts his moon roof, and the handle comes off in his fist. Second, he then finds himself jammed between trucks, and the truck in front of him is loaded down with caged chickens. Third, chicken feathers swirl onto his windshield, through his moon roof, and onto his face. He tries to remove the feathers from his windshield with washer fluid, but he showers himself with his own water. Clearly, this scene anticipates Max's encounter with the nuclear waste truck. Afterward, he has to deal with the departure of his girlfriend Darcy (Patti D'Arbanville), and this predicament pushes him over the edge into massive depression. One of the funnier moments has Max using his powers when he gets upset about a rival, Barry, has convinced Darcy to go out on a date. While Max and Darcy are arguing over her date with Barry, Max's rage grows to the point that he makes a C-47 ashtray fly around the room. Predictably, Max manages to win Darcy back with his special telekinetic powers. First, he induces a case of nose-bleed on her stuck-up boyfriend, Barry (Mitch Kreindel of "Being There"), to force him to leave the restaurant. Later, he sabotages Barry's opera, making the lead dancer plunge off the stage at one point during his routine. Afterward, once Barry has taken Darcy home, Max steps in and takes Darcy to bed and gives her orgasm after orgasm before admitting that he isn't doing it. The major set-piece takes place as a Victorian beach house where Max and Darcy are invited by an old friend, Brian (Brian Doyle-Murray), who is a decorated Vietnam veteran confined to a wheelchair after an explosion crippled him following a sexual encounter with a Vietnamese woman. As it turns out, the enemy woman left a bomb under his bed after they had sex. Brian meets Max's ex-wife Lorraine (Mary Kay Place) one afternoon while Max is discussing his loss of Darcy with him. Lorraine falls head over heels in love with Brian after they meet at a gay bar where Brian is holding a publicity party for his bestselling self-help author, Mark Winslow (Dabney Coleman of "9 to 5"), who is so conceited that he thinks all women crave him. Coleman excels at being obnoxious and has a funny moment when he bares his butt to seduce Darcy. Darcy doesn't take the bait because she has refocused her sights on Max. At the beach house, Max goes nuts, turns luminous green, and behaves as if he were possessed. He dangles a white mouse in the air and then sniffs all of the white powder that superstitious Dorita (Nell Carter), a Haitian maid from Port Au Prince, has sprinkled around his bed to confine him to the mattress. This is probably the best scene after the opera scene. Darcy struggles to reassure Max on the roof of the beach house that she genuinely is concerned about him. Eventually, Dorita is stricken with the same powers. Abruptly, the film concludes as if Shapiro and co-scenarists Tom Sherohman and Arthur Sellers exhausted their creativity. Dabney Coleman adopts a phony accent that makes him sound funny, and Max subjects Mark's character to one humiliation after another during a dinner table scene. Chase delivers another low-key, laid-back performance where he relies on his deadpan behavior for maximum impact. The cast is charismatic, but the comedy is sporadic. "Modern Problems" boasts several goofy moments, but it isn't the tour-de-force that "The Groove Tube" was. Altogether, "Modern Problems" isn't Chase's best, but neither is it is worst.

This was a very unbalanced film. A very young Chevy Chase not being very funny. In fact often trying to make something funny, with his goofy faces, that just wasn't funny. The spans between spots where laughs should have been were consistently long and tedious, and then... no laughs. I almost laughed once in the film, but I don't remember when, it's not worth expending the energy required to remember. Kept watching, waiting for a customary Chase side splitter that never came. Slow, slow, slow. Only because Chase was in it did I keep watching. It got more interesting towards the end when Chase starts doling out revenge, but that was only interesting because, who doesn't like seeing someone getting what's coming to them. If you liked any of the vacation films, don't expect this one to live up to the marks set by those. I had the sensation throughout that just having Chevy Chase in a film was suppose to be enough to satisfy the viewer. It wasn't.

an average Joe air traffic controller is having problems. He is having little success winning back his girlfriend until nuclear waste spills on his car giving him telekentic powers. The once meek, but now suddenly empowered he begins to wreak havoc on those who have annoyed him culminating in a weekend getaway at his friend's beach house where his powers go out of control.....This is a really odd movie. Really, really odd. The first couple of minutes, I thought I'd be in store for a spoof in the style of a Zucker movie. The first couple of minutes are quite fast, zany, and blooming deceptive.Because after that, it goes really dark, and from then in it cant decide whether it wants to be a dark adult comedy (it is because of the nudity) or whether it still wants to play for the young ones.At the end of the day, it's far to silly for adults, and way too sinister for kids, and it just misses every demographic it tries to aim for.The cast are okay, Chase is as watchable as he ever is, and the support is brilliant as well, but all in all, its a wasted opportunity..

Modern Problems is not remembered as being one of Chevy Chase's finest films, however there are some pretty funny moments in it. You just have to wait a while to find them. Chase plays an air traffic controller who just had his girlfriend walk out on him due to his overly-possessive nature. He spends the first 20 minutes or so moping around about the situation, then he is accidentally exposed to some toxic waste which gives him the ability to make things move. He sets out to use this power to win his girlfriend over and bring her back to him. The film really doesn't have many laughs that don't deal with his new powers, and the special f/x used to show them off are pretty pedestrian.There are however some pretty good laughs once Chase gets these amazing powers. In one scene he sees his girlfriend out on a date with a real jerk. Chase decides to end their date by making blood gush out of the man's nose. As someone who has had some serious nosebleeds, I kind of cringe during this scene, but yes it is kinda funny. In another scene, Chase uses his powers to give his girlfriend the best orgasm of her life while the two are reconciling at her place one evening. Chase is pretty funny as he uses facial expressions to mock the sounds coming out of the woman. By far the film's funniest moment comes when Chase disrupts a ballet by doing all sorts of things to the prissy lead male dancer. Not much in terms of Chevy's usually funny dialog is evident in the film, though. He just always seems to be in too lousy of a mood to be funny.The supporting performances are quite good. Dabney Coleman (as he often does) steals every scene he's in as an egotistical manic self-help author. He and Chase have some good go-arounds throughout the film. The two lead females do a fine job, as does Brian Doyle-Murray. Nell Carter provides some good laughs herself as she tries to use voodoo to subdue Chase. Her character is Haitian, and she believes he is some sort of demon.Overall, the film is somewhat funny. It is hurt by questionable writing, poor effects, and an all too abrupt conclusion. This is certainly a few rungs below Fletch or Caddyshack on the comedic ladder! 5 of 10 stars.The Hound.