In the Mood (1987)

hyped garbage

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The real life adventures of "Sonny" Wisecarver do seem like the stuff for a laugh-out-loud comedy, but that's not how it ends up in this retelling. To be sure, there are some humorous moments that did make me laugh, but most of the movie is not made out to be "ha ha" funny. Instead, it is lightly amusing. I think this was the right course for the movie to take, because it gives the events of the movie a sweetness that's somewhat charming. And while the movie is not hilarious, it's made up for in a large part by the story of the movie being so interesting, you'll wonder where it will end up.Dempsey was a good choice for the lead role. He is very likable, and acts in a way that you understand why older women would fall for him. His character does do some stupid things in the movie... but he's a teenager, and we all did dumb stuff as a teenager. Another positive thing about the movie is that the period detail is very good.Still, I could not help but wonder what people would think if the sexes of the movie had been switched. Just goes to show that when it comes to love and romance, there is a double standard.

In the middle of World War II, in the absence of many men from the usual breeding pool in Los Angeles, Sonny Wisecarver (Patrick Dempsey), a fifteen-year-old boy who is tall for his age, runs off with two grown women. Woman number one is six years older than he is, and dim witted and horny. Woman number two is ten years older, and horny and dim-witted.The first time it's with Thalia Balsam, the common-law wife of a great bruiser named Carlo and the mother of two babies. They get married in Yuma, spend a night together, and get caught. The love affair is broken up by the stern and cynical judge who is not influenced by Sonny's apparent charm.The second time, he runs away from his job in a tuna-processing plant with the wife of a overseas Marine. This time there's no question of love on the part of either party. They get caught, the affair is broken up, the same judge now sends Sonny to a camp run by the California Youth Authority. Sonny doesn't like the camp and runs away.With all these tabloid headlines, Sonny becomes a hero -- dubbed "The Woo Woo Kid" -- and all the restless young women salivating over him. He's "the perfect mate" who really "knows how to make love", say the papers. "He's done it again!", says the Newsreel voice.At first, my impression of Sonny Wisecarver was that he was just a dumb high-school kid who committed a foolish and impulsive act, running away from home and from school with a pretty woman he had a crush on. But, listening to his ironic and self-pitying narration, I began to think he might be one of those people who hunger so rabidly for attention that they'll take a nose dive off the Empire State if a camera is rolling.Then, with his escape from the corrections facility, the clinical picture became a little clearer. He seemed less like a wayward and naive teen ager and more like a good example of what's now called "anti-social personality, socialized type." A generation ago he would have been called a "sociopath" and before that a "psychopath." His stimulus hunger takes him wherever whimsy dictates. And meanwhile he's "laying pipe", as he puts it.The writers and director try their damnedest to make us like Sonny. Like Forrest Gump, he seems at once good-natured, generous, stupid, and perceptive. Whether you'll yield to those demands depends on your ability to swallow some scenes that are obviously contrived for the purpose of making the film itself likable and up tempo. For instance, when Sonny leaps off a train on which he's been identified as a fugitive, he runs at full fifteen-year-old speed down a rural road pursued by ladies in high heels. The scene is ludicrous, but whether a given viewer buys it or not is problematic. And it raises the question of what else has been falsified for the sake of promoting our identification with this poor love-sick child.Dempsey is adequate, but he's outmatched by both of his female partners. Thalia Balsam, Martin's daughter, captures the defeated but not hopeless, impoverished wife perfectly. She's big-eyed and sweet and speaks with an endearing lisp. After she's out of the picture by order of the court, the writers wisely give us a shot of her wounded expression while reading about Sonny's second adventure. See, for her, it really MAY have had something to do with "love". And Beverly D'Angelo as the second kid-napper outclasses Dempsey as the defiant and aggressively sexual, cheating wife of the Marine. The direction is functional, the musical score is all 1944 big band and Billy Holiday, and the production design by Dennis Gassner is evocative. One shot shows Balsam's fingernails painted a deep scarlet -- not the glossy, long, claw-like shrimp-pink of a Hollywood actress, but the clipped and gnawed fingernails of a working girl wearing cheap-looking polish. In a way it's a pretty distasteful movie. I don't mean that to refer to anything remotely connected with the sex or the affection, but with the fact that this movie tries to make a heroic figure out of someone who has little regard for his parents, his friends, or his own future. Doing deviant stuff isn't necessarily funny. Taking off without explanation from home and school leaves baffled and worried parents behind. Balsam's character winds up betrayed. D'Angelo's husband is cuckolded. And it's all a big joke?

Patrick Dempsey stars as "Sonny Wisecarver" aka the "The Woo-Woo Kid" in this small film which is based on a true story about a teenager in 1944 who has two affairs with older women. Beverly D'Angelo and Talia Balsam are appropriately sexy as the two love interests for Dempsey. All in all the film is a nice way to pass the time. It is one of those hit-and-miss comedies that came a dime a dozen in the 1980s. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Patrick Dempsey, in his very early film vehicle before LOVERBOY and HAPPY TOGETHER, played a lovestruck teenager known as the "Woo Woo Kid", circa 1944. He's the all-American boy who is always IN THE MOOD for women much older than him. To revive the 40s is an understatement; it could have been much more livelier and funnier the same way. When you first get a glance of this overlooked movie, it will almost be very puny and be best forgettable. This is probably Dempsey's best one, showing that he's been capable of being a kid out of the ordinary, and always ends up taking the wrong paths toward trouble. The "true" story of Sonny Wisecarver (which this is based on) seemed mightily uncommon and not often remembered to this day, but this piece of interest may catch your eye for a split second or two. Worth a valuable 49-cent rental.