For Richer or Poorer (1997)

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I have always enjoyed this movie. Everybody always talks about Witness being the best Amish film (they even reference it in this movie!), but I've always found Witness to be a bit too scary, although I do watch it sometimes. For Richer or Poorer is a lovely, funny, and heart-warming movie -- the Amish movie to watch when you want to relax and unwind. My favorite scene is near the end when Tim Allen and Jay O. Sanders are standing in the corn field and Tim is marveling that the corn he had struggled to plant is growing so tall and full. Jay then says that he finds it ironic that the English have always viewed the Amish as backward, and as hiding from reality. Then he points towards to growing corn and says, "But this is the reality....it is not we who are hiding." Kirstie Allen and Tim Allen, as well as well-known character actors Wayne Knight and Larry Miller, provide big laughs throughout. Great writing, some interesting side stories, beautiful landscapes, and an interesting window into Amish life, all make this movie a winner!

For Richer or Poorer (1997): Dir: Bryan Spicer / Cast: Tim Allen, Kirstie Alley, Jay O'Sanders, Larry Miller, Wayne Knight: Rich in terms of message yet poor in everything else. Title suggests our little regard for what little we have particularly within relationships. Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley play a bickering couple on the run after their accountant commits fraud. Their marriage is on the rocks but they must put their difference aside and hideout. They find refuge in an Amish community where Allen is put to work training Big John the horse and Alley tries to convince them to wear color. Plot has appeal but the screenplay wears thin with formula structure and predictable happy ending. An improvement for Bryan Spicer who previously directed the wretched McHale's Navy, also the same year. Allen and Alley are a superb comic pairing who rise above the clichés and formula storytelling although no one should be surprised at the outcome. Flat supporting roles with Jay O'Sanders as an Amish citizen whom they deceive but eventually must confess to. Larry Miller plays a brainless cop with good comic potential despite cardboard role. Wayne Knight plays the scoundrel accountant in a cardboard appearance. Strong marriage theme, which is a plus considering the industry's lust for the forbidden, however it is within a screenplay that is more poor than rich. Score: 6 / 10

Brad (Tim Allen) and Caroline Sexton (Kirstie Alley) are showy real estate developer who's always on the hustle. They are an annoying pair who are only outwardly rich. They get framed by their accountant Bob Lachman (Wayne Knight). The bickering twosome is too hard to watch. Why would anybody want to stay with this married couple if these two angry people don't.Of course Brad steals a cab on the run from gun shooting IRS agents, and Caroline just happens to hop on for no reason. The two unlikeable people escape and crash in Amish country. There they learn to be wonderful caring sweet people. Call somebody who cares.These people are ugly. And Tim Allen had this moment when he's trying to get money from the ATM. They had his ugly mug stuffed right onto the screen yelling at the audience. It's a horrible moment in cinema. The greatest sin is that nothing here is unfunny. Absolutely nothing.

Okay, so most of this movie is not plausible, such as a lot of what happens once Brad and Caroline manage to convince an Amish family that they are relatives, but we'll let that one go for now. This is Tim Allen, as Brad, and Kirstie Alley as Caroline, and they are not two of our better actors out there now. But what they do, for the most part, is entertaining, if not predictable. And that is what this movie is: entertaining and predictable. The plot centers around a couple, who we learn early on cannot stand each other, and the fact that their financial manager has been cheating them on their taxes. We'll let it also go that a smart business person would not check his or her own taxes before signing. Then we have an armed IRS agent, obviously a nut-case, who goes after Brad and Caroline with a passion, and the couple somehow manages to end up in the same cab in their escape from New York (sorry, could not resist). They end up in PA and convince an Amish family that they are relatives, and thus are allowed to stay. We find out later why this man allowed them to stay, which also is not plausible, but a gap had to be filled in, and I guess that this was the best the writers could come up with at the time. This is your typical fish-out-of-water story, and some of the jokes are funny as are Allen's facial expressions. He does do that well. His little speech to Big John is actually very funny, as are most of the scenes with this horse. Sanders as Samuel Yoder was okay, but he did not behave the way we all know the Amish do, and that did not sit too well with me. So, if you can set aside the fact that what happens really would never happen, and this includes running away from the IRS, then just sit back and enjoy the ride.