The Survivors (1983)

Smile and Bad News Bears helmer Michael Ritchie and sitcom scribe Michael Leeson (Rhoda, Taxi, Happy Days) pooled their talents for this overlooked 1983 buddy comedy. The picture details the unlikely camaraderie of service-station owner Sonny (Walter Matthau), who loses his business in an explosive mishap, and New York executive Donald (Robin Williams), fired in the most humiliating manner by a ruthless boss and a gun-toting secretary. Winding up next to each other at a diner counter, these two strangers inadvertently foil a gunman's (Jerry Reed) stick-up of the restaurant and become local heroes and friends, but the incident sends Donald completely around the bend. Confronted with his own fear in the face of Reed's gun, Donald accumulates an outrageous stockpile of assault weapons and hightails it to the wilderness for survivalist training at a paramilitary camp; Sonny heads out to rescue him, adolescent daughter (Kristen Vigard) in-tow. The picture benefits from its inspired, lunatic premise and from Williams's comic performance. Some critics accused Ritchie of shooing the wisdom that George Roy Hill displayed on the set of The World According to Garp (when he clamped down on Williams's desire to improvise), arguing that Ritchie allows Williams to destroy scenes with his ad-libbing. But (as in the 1987 Good Morning, Vietnam) the free association here serves Williams's character brilliantly. He doesn't begin his shtick until Donald has a breakdown, and from that point the insanity of the character and the ever-present comic buzz of the actor mesh with something close to perfection. (And, moreover, Williams is funny.) More difficult to swallow are the undercurrents of cynicism, pain, and anger from which Leeson pulls humor in the first half of the film. One example has Donald asking politely to cut in front of a woman in an employment line -- she promptly offers to bite his nose off and shove it sideways. A subsequent scene has an unemployment officer dumping a can of mace into Sonny's eyes when he refuses to move. These are indicative of the early overtones in the picture, and its acid level of pessimism about the sourness of human nature and the rotten state of the world leave a bitter aftertaste. (It feels wholly credible, all right, but -- like Scorsese's The King of Comedy -- the rage and cynicism become almost too paralyzing for a comedy.) Despite this, we can be glad that the picture cools down slightly after its first half-hour or so; it continues to bite but lightens up a bit, and its nuttiness turns surprisingly breezy and enjoyable to sit through. (Williams's one-ended telephone call to Reed in the final act is undoubtedly the film's comic highlight; it recalls Newhart, but substitutes anger and raw insult humor for the passivity and helplessness of the button-down mind.) This much-underrated picture also features an early appearance by John Goodman and a lovely turn by the fetching redhead Vigard. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide