Blame It on Rio (1984)

Don't Believe the Hype

Better than most people think

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

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

Matthew Hollis (Michael Caine) works in Sao Paulo with his best friend Victor Lyons (Joseph Bologna). They intend to go on a family vacation together but Matthew's wife Karen (Valerie Harper) surprises everyone by going to Bahia Club Med instead. She needs time to think about their struggling marriage. Victor is also going through a difficult divorce. The two dads bring along their teenage daughters Jennifer Lyons (Michelle Johnson) and Nikki Hollis (Demi Moore). Matthew is uncomfortable with the liberated sexuality. Jennifer starts flirting with Matthew and they have an affair. He tries to break up and she tells her father about her older married boyfriend. Victor ropes Matthew in to find the identity of this older man.This is suppose to be a comedy but I find the subject matter saps much of the humor away. It's not just that she's that young but she's also a girl he's known since she was a baby. Also Michelle Johnson is quite young to do full nudity. Wiki claims that she got court permission to appear nude at the age of 17. It's a teenage boy's dream but it should be uncomfortable for everybody else. It's not a surprise that this is based on a French film. Michael Caine does salvage a few fun moments with his acting. It's a watchable comedy if one doesn't get offended.

I really don't connect with this film. I saw it during my raging hormone years, and back then it was a cheap thrill. Watching it now with a more mature mind I can't really see the attraction. I guess if you get married young, are a middle-aged male whose been married to the same person for a number of years, you may have felt you've missed out on life somewhere along the line. For any males viewing this, guess what, you haven't.To me this seems like a Shakespearean kind of play with a happy ending, in that no one dies or gets burned at the end in spite of all of the bed hopping. Still, not really my kind of film. The characters are a little one dimensional in a sex comic kind of way, but it is an entertaining watch all the same for what it is.The young girl with stars in her eyes finds herself attracted to an older man. Not really a match made in heaven, and repercussions resound. All in all kind of a strange film for what it is, really. Kind of light hearted in tone, but I can't imagine real people being as forgiving. In that way it seems rather, well, just crazy.But, like I say, at least the theme song is okay. Well shot, respectably acted, if you're a divorcée, then this might or might not help you get through the night.See it once.

Wow, this was bad. Unbelievably so, given the writing credits, given Bologna and Caine, and given the fact that this was helmed by one of my favorite directors: two of his films are in my Top Ten to take to a desert island. I couldn't figure out even that this was supposed to be a comedy until I was maybe halfway into it. No comedy, black or otherwise, is supposed to keep the viewer guessing for half the film whether this is the genre That's a big clue that it just doesn't work.I see that Michelle Johnson was nominated for a Razzie, and she certainly deserved it, although Donen's the one really at fault here. He certainly seems to have lost his mind with this casting, the actress's most noticeable assets being located between her neck and her navel, and her greatest talent apparently her willingness to show them. Again, the atrocious performance by the female lead is Donen's fault (and is it any wonder that this was his last cinema release?), since Ms. Johnson was a mere 17, fresh out of high school and signed up to be a model. Her status as a minor just adds to the overall creepy quality of this film.I've nothing against age-gap romance on film or in real life, but I do have something against minors used in this way for a film, and I also have something against the "comic" plot of the hook-up of a man with his good friend's daughter, whom he has known since birth and is his daughter's friend. Yes, this situation has been seen, more or less, in cinema both before and since, but not in this chuckle-chuckle buddy-film sort of way, and the others I've seen have higher values of every sort. Caine's character takes advantage, utterly ignores his own daughter (Demi Moore is wasted here), lies to his friend, and commits adultery, and we're supposed to find it all very nutty and funny.The plot twist near the end did take me by surprise---contrived though it was---but even then I don't think I smiled once. What an icky, icky film.

I should rate this higher than I did. The mainstream critics have bashed it like it was written and directed by the devil himself. The main idea of an 18 year old daughter seducing her Dad's best friend (practically in front of HIS daughter) while on a family vacation, is clearly creepy. But it is written as pure comedy and played for laughs. That takes some of the sting out of it. And........the scenery, and I mean all the scenery, is fabulous. Caine and Bologna (an acquired taste) stumble and stammer thru some funny dialog, and no one was injured during the filming of this movie. Well, possibly the insanely gorgeous Michelle Johnson's career. She was in her 1st film and asked to display her assets early and often. And she looks GREAT!! As pretty an 18 year old as you will ever see on film. But she had no acting skills and came off as such an amateur that I would "Blame I On" the director. It may have been hard to do retakes to get it right, or he would have killed Michael Caine in the process.If you don't mind tasteful nudity of a tasteless situation, a typically grating cameo by Valerie Harper and the most colorful and lush view of Rio ever, take a watch. On edited TV its a 3, on cable it's a 6 or 7!!