In what can only be described as a dramatic change of pace,
Robert Altman directed this raunchy teen comedy based on the antics of two characters featured in a series of stories published in the National Lampoon. Oliver Cromwell Ogilvie (Daniel Jenkins), aka O.C., and his buddy Mark Stiggs (
Neil Barry), are a pair of misfit teenagers whose greatest joy in life is making those around them miserable. O.C.'s ancient grandfather (
Ray Walston) has just had his insurance cancelled, and when he discovers that suburbanite salesman Randall Schwabb (
Paul Dooley) is responsible, O.C. and Stiggs swing into a summer-long campaign to get revenge on Schwabb and his family. While it received some of the most brutally negative reviews of Altman's career, O.C. and Stiggs is worth a quick look for its cast, which includes fellow outcast auteurs
Dennis Hopper and
Melvin Van Peebles, comics
Louis Nye and Jane Curtain, the one-time glamour girl of the Clifford Irving scandal
Nina Van Pallandt, and Thomas Hal Phillips, reprising his role as Hal Phillip Walker from
Nashville. World music superstars King Sunny Ade and his African Beats appear and provide the musical score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide