Buddy (1997)

Really, is anyone going to be surprised to learn that I walked out 
on BUDDY, director Caroline Thompson's family-friendly drama, based 
on the real life of Gertrude Lintz, an eccentric socialite in the 
1920's who loved animals, liked to keep chimps around the house, 
and raised a certain gorilla as if it were a human child?  Despite 
a game cast (Rene Russo, Robbie Coltrane, Irma P. Hall, and, in one 
scene, the Artist Formerly Known as Pee Wee Herman), a workable 
premise, and a director who most certainly knows her way around odd 
(she wrote EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, among other things), there isn't a 
thing here to engage the brain.  No subtext, no wit, no tension, no 
terror.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.   

So, if you can find amusement in watching well-dressed chimps mon-
key around a mansion... or delight in the care and feeding of ani-
matronic animal infants... or have never seen David Letterman pose 
the question Can a Guy in a Gorilla Suit Get Into a Feature Film?, 
then this might be the movie for you.  Or, more likely, your kids.   
Otherwise, you'll probably end up as I did, feeling like a caged 
animal after a mere twenty minutes.  My companion, however, had 
another half-hour of optimism in her and, until that blessed bee-
line to the lobby, I passed the time by imagining alternate fates 
for the furry tyke:  drop-kicked by Bruce Willis, cryogenically 
frozen with Mike Myers, pitched head-first into a lava flow, and, 
of course, swallowed whole by a still-hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex.  
Chomp.  (Rated "PG"/84 min.)

Grade: W/O

Copyright 1997 by Michael J. Legeros
Movie Hell is a trademark of Michael J. Legeros

Originally posted to triangle.movies in MOVIE HELL: Peeling Out