Uneven sales pitch

CADILLAC MAN (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The pacing is off in the first unwieldy hour of "Cadillac Man," an alleged comedy of manners. Or is it a comedy of manners? I am not sure. Robin Williams is the Cadillac salesman but he is not the best at a sales pitch. He is desperate to sell cars, you see, because he has three different mistresses and an ex-wife to support. He also ignores his daughter (whom we never see). Some of this is prime comic material that could stretch in so many directions. The one direction the writers chose is unexpected and an altogether different movie.

Tim Robbins plays a delirious, insane madman who crashes into the Cadillac dealership and threatens everyone with a machine gun. He is mad as hell and will not take it anymore because he believes his wife (a thankless Annabella Sciorra) is cheating on him. Williams tries to calm him down, but none of this material results in comic fireworks. And with the exception of Williams throwing in some witty one-liners, there is nothing funny about it, not the staging nor the histrionic performances. Robbins exists in a vacuum of obscene screams - if he is not screaming, he is firing his machine gun at the ceiling. If he is not shooting, he is screaming and hollering and mustering something that is akin to cartoonish excess. Sometimes he does both and it grows wearisome and monotonous.

Directed like a frenzied comedy minus the humor by Roger Donaldson (a strange director to helm this travesty), the movie never builds into anything - it is simply frenzied. Williams is also more restrained than I expected. And though the film had potential with its first hour (and the far too brief appearance by Elaine Stritch as a widow that will leave you in stitches), the rest of the movie is a train wreck. And you know train wrecks are not funny.