8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997)

Waste of time

Pretty Good

I wanted to but couldn't!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A mob bagman (Joe Pesci) finds that his luggage, containing the proof of his latest hit, has been switched.This was a nice departure for David Spade, stepping away from "Saturday Night Live", though still staying within comedy. Not his best work, but also probably not his fault. As a whole, the movie never really takes off the way it should.The exception is an awesome dream sequence, perhaps one of the better dream sequences ever filmed. Sadly, this one minute is the very best -- the rest of the film does not live up to the great title. Overall, it is quite tame on the violence and gore for the subject matter. If the same story was done without it being comedy, who knows how great this might have been?

You won't laugh your head off at "8 Heads in a Duffel Bag" because this decapitated comedy of errors is about as funny as a frontal lobotomy. Pint-sized Joe Pesci of "Goodfellas" plays Tommy, a combustible, crew-cut, wise-guy who must deliver a duffel bag of eight heads to a vengeful crime boss. Basically, the mob chieftain insists on verifying the contents for himself. Andy Comeau co-stars as a clean-cut college kid named Charlie, with a duffel bag of duds, bound for a weekend in Mexico with his cute girlfriend Laurie Bennett (Kristy Swanson of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and her stuffy parents. Dyan Cannon and George Hamilton play Laurie's mother and father Annette and Dick Bennett. Tommy and Charlie take the same flight out, sit next to each other, but don't hit it off. Guess whose bags do the duffel shuffle in all the airport chaos. When Tommy learns he has snagged the wrong bag, he heads off for Charlie's college fraternity house. He tortures Charlie's two pin-headed med school pals Ernie (David Spade) and Steve (Todd Louiso) who cannot tell Tommy a thing because they know nothing about Charlie's plans. How much laughter can you generate from of a scene where a thug snaps a wet towel at two naked frat boys? Meanwhile, in Mexico, David's future mother-in-law, Annette Bennett (Dyan Cannon of "Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice") discovers the grisly contents of the bag and turn into a basket case. Charlie and his girlfriend try to lose the heads, but nothing they do works. Thieves steal Dick Bennett's truck fro them, and a coyote snatches one of the noggins. Dick winds up in a Mexican hoosegow after two heads show up in his baggage at the airport. Eventually, just as Tommy is about to snuff the frats, Charlie calls. Charlie and Tommy agree to get their heads together. By this time, writer & director Tom Schulman has devoted half of the movie to time spent in Mexico on the labored comedy of characters up to their ears in head games. The lowbrow plot gets even more complicated and less humorous. Tommy finds out that Charlie might have let a couple of heads roll, so he forces Ernie and Steve to help him come up with two replacement craniums.While all of this is happening, two more mob guys trail Tommy across the border. It seems that the headstrong crime boss is pretty head up waiting for his heads. Bennett's mother, a chain-smoking battle ax, shows up, too. The trouble with "8 Heads" is that Schulman spends too much time bringing Tommy and Charlie together. A good comedy of errors depends on nimble timing, witty humor, and a snappy story. "8 Heads" squanders too much time on plot filler and gets a little too mean-spirited, particularly when Tommy spews profanities galore. The confusion that guillotines the best laid plans of the heroes rarely elicits a laugh. Tommy looks like a headbanger who wandered in from a Martin Scorsese bloodbath.You know you're in trouble at a comedy when the movie allots more time to the exposition than the gags. You know you're watching an empty-heded comedy when the movie characters resort to jokes about the film. You know the movie-makers are desperate when the resort to a dream sequence. They have the heads warble a tune in Tommy's dreams, while their headless bodies attack him. Pretty soon you notice, too, that the laughs get to be fewer and far between. When one of the characters suggests a better plan than what the writer gave to the star, you know you're in a bad movie. Charlie criticizes Tommy for not flying the heads out on a privately chartered jet. Sure, the heads would arrive intact, but there would be no comedy. Anyway, it shows what a numbskull Tommy is. You'd at least mark your bag if you were toting around severed body parts, right?Compared with the wise guys that he impersonated in "Goodfellas" and "Casino," Pesci's errand boy Tommy is just plain cranky. He loves to smash phones and brandish his giant automatic pistol. Tommy makes a terrible hero because he's never sympathetic and he is much too stupid. Indeed, it is fun to see a couple of 1960s era stars like Cannon and Hamilton co-star in a 1990s film, but they're wasted in stereotypical supporting roles. Hamilton phones in most of his lines to his mother, trying to persuade her not to visit their motel. Spade sleepwalks through a role that demands very little of his enormously dry talent."8 Heads in a Duffel Bag" belongs to the corpse comedy genre. Even "Weekend at Bernie's 2" was one head and one body about this multi-cranical farce. Pesci fans will wonder why he gave his nod to this skullduggery.

Well, I have to admit the title of this film caught my eye, enough for me to check out the VHS back in the late '90s. I also was encouraged by the beginning of this film. It starts off very promising with a funny premise and some really good humor.But - wow - does terrible acting start to take over by the two leads, Andy Comeau and Kristy Swanson! No wonder these two never made it as film stars. The overacted so badly, it was embarrassing to watch. George Hamilton did a poor job, sounding very wooden.Only Joe Pesci and Dyan Cannon gave any kind of acting performances in this dark comedy. Often, I love black comedies but this movie was just so poorly executed, so convoluted and overly mean-spirited, it was a waste of time. You want to just take a bath after watching (and listening to over 20 abuses of the Lord's name in vain) this and hope you forget the 90 minutes you just totally wasted. As mentioned, the best thing about the movie is the title.

8 Heads in a Duffel Bag is a great example of a perfect situation comedy film. The events and(especially)the reaction to those events is comedy at its best. The directing conveys the humorous, yet dangerous tone of the film in a very superb way. The writing tells a story full of insane circumstances happening to normal, everyday people. The acting of the film, most notably that of Joe Pesci and David Spade, is such a huge part of the comedy that the film definitely couldn't have had otherwise. All in all, perfect writing, perfect acting. Watch and laugh.Travis.