The Out-of-Towners (1999)

Brilliant and touching

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I don't understand why this movie has so many negative reviews. Certainly it is not as good as the original which starred the great Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis but it does have it's merits. Steve Martin is in top form, Goldie Hawn has some great lines and is cute as can be. John Cleese? Well he is just hilarious as an extremely rude and arrogant hotel manager who has some, shall we say highly unusual proclivities! It even has a cameo by then New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (as himself) who shows that he does indeed have a sense of humor as he views Martin and Hawn in a "compromising" position at Tavern on the Green in Central Park! There is also a great scene with an encounter group. This group has some sexual "issues" to discuss. Cynthia Nixon is a riot (and very sexy) as an extreme nymphomaniac! I'd jump in with her in a heartbeat (I think I'm the male equivalent of a nympho)!

A(mother) AWFUL 'remake' of a film.TO 'RE-MAKE - is to redo, I.e, 'update make, au-courrant.I'm NOT 100 years old, nor close to it, however, I saw silent films as a kid - and understood them), than ls to my father.I saw the ORIGINAL Out Of-Towners, on late night TV (remember?) and loved it.I ALSO work in …media, and whilst I DO understand 'maikng money', and 'updating' material (i.e., 'property') for a 'new' (i.e., brain-dead) market, I DO NOT get dumbing-down.This is a perfect example of why 'remakes' are utterly WRONG when made by IMBICILES.If anyone reading this remembers (is SMART enough to) the original (no, I don't care how old, you are, you recall the following; A man from the Midwest gets a job offer, and has o travel (with his wife) to NYC.They board a plane, and things go wrong from there.The plane gets diverted, luggage is lost, their reservation's lost, they end up in Central Park, and he (Jack Lemmon) is (almost) arrested for child molestation,and more.That was the synopsis of the (original) 1970 plot.Now - almost 30 years later, let me ask you;Do planes STILL get diverted? - Luggge lost? - How about reservations - they never lost?So, to be honest, not much has changed (oh, the prices HAVE gone up, but, what else is new).Instead, the makers of thIs garbage think that by taking the 'bones' - an then putting up on it totally new 'skin', they can come up with a 'yuck-fest', and keep the title.NO.This is pure - unadulterated GARBAGE.

I've laughed a films that had both Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin. And having seen the original Out of Towners years back, I think I can safely say that this film really doesn't hit any humorous chords.Frank Thornton said it best in a KQED interview back in the 1990s when he came to visit San Francisco after being invited by the PBS station. We laugh at the antics of character on stage and screen because it makes use feel superior, because we wouldn't be dumb enough to do what they have (done). He further went on to say that we wouldn't admit it to ourselves, but that is why we laugh.And when I saw this remake I couldn't help but think that some corporate hired director (who probably did some drugs) was given some paint-by-the- numbers instructions of how to direct this film based on a script that had been doctored to death and resembled nothing of Neil Simon's original work from a couple decades earlier. There's that, and the fact that the gags in this film just don't hold up. There's no motivation nor real shock value in any of them. And even a couple of the gags were in other films that came out around the same time. And when you mix all that together, what have you got?You can't fault the actors. I remember Steve Martin in lots of other films, and his performance is on par here with previous work. Ditto with Goldie Hawn who actually looks more attractive now in this film than she ever did as a young college girl in Laugh In, or as the 30-something damsel in distress during her run in the 70s and 80s. But the material both actors and the supporting cast are given to work with is pretty dismal and just not fresh. And, with all due respect to both leads, part of that may be that Martin and Hawn don't strike us the audience as the naive suburbanites from a very church conservative sector of the nation.A better film needed a different director and most definitely a different script. Or, better yet, don't do remakes in the first place.Watch at your own risk.

I think I am done with reviewing after this one, or even discussing garbage like this. I would rather just spend my energy talking about the good. This could be the worst thing that ever was made, and I don't just mean movies, I'm suggesting the worst of ANY item ever put together by human beings on this Earth. I would expect Goldie Hawn to be a part of this....garbage (and I am being nice) but Steve Martin, well, he HAS done some crap, but he should be so ashamed of himself that he never tries to "act" in another movie. There should be a movement, lead by people who know what the original was, to have this...thing... stricken from the archives of film, to be removed and all remnants of it eliminated, so as to not be associated in any way, shape or form, to this...thing. After reading the good reviews on this? I am so embarrassed to actually have a membership card to the human race. Wow. Wow. Again.....Wow.