Screw Loose

Rating

Director

Ezio Greggio

Screenplay

Rudy DeLuca, Steve Haberman

Length

1h 25m

Starring

Ezio Greggio, Mel Brooks, Julie Condra, Gianfranco Barra, Randi Ingerman, John Karlsen, Enzo Iacchetti, Riccardo Miniggio, Claudio Parachinetto, Dario Ballantini, Pietro Ghislandi, Zoe Incrocci, Robert Dawson

MPAA Rating

R

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
To most of us, sanity is a matter of opinion. Sometimes people can go crazy – or at least feel that way – even if they are otherwise completely ‘normal’. Unfortunately, there’s nothing normal about Screw Loose, a slapstick comedy starring and directed by Italian funny man Ezio Greggio.

Greggio plays Bernardo Puccini, son of Guido Puccini (Gianfranco Barra), president of an Italian “natural” food plant who insists that everything should contain sugar, fat or preservatives. When Guido has a heart attack trying to deal with Greggio’s supposed incompetence; his deathbed request is that he see one man before he dies. The man – American Jake Gordon (Mel Brooks) – saved Guido’s life during the Second World War by pulling a fallen statue of the Virgin Mary off of him.

When Bernardo arrives in America in search of Jake, he discovers that his quarry has been living out his life in a sanatorium. Bernardo does what he must do to free Jake and bring him back to see Guido in Italy, and he’s pursued throughout this effort by the beautiful Dr. Barbara Collier (Julie Condra) who doesn’t seem able to tolerate the idea of allowing a mental patient to roam free.

Screw Loose is a screwball comedy of the most annoying sort. Brooks has long passed his comedic peak and only occasionally rises above the low standard of this weak comedy. There are moments when his talent is evident, but the movie drags on and on without ever finding a firm footing.

Not only is Greggio dull, but his directing talent is equally questionable. His comic timing is unimpressive, causing a serious break in the cinematic form. Only a few scenes are intrinsically funny and there comes a point when you stop caring about the characters and situations and just wish the movie would end.

The other performances are consistently weak and there’s a disastrous problem with the voice track. Gianfranco Barra chews every bit of scenery available and Julie Condra is barely passable as an actress. Her beauty is unquestionable, but she doesn’t pass for a psychologist. Randi Ingerman is one more sad participant, as Bernardo’s vain, stereotypical and plastic surgery-loving fiancée.

What makes Screw Loose worse is the fact that it tries to pass itself off as containing some meaning. It attempts to convey the idea that sanity is in the eye of the beholder and what one person considers insane, another finds humorous. The problem is that there’s nothing funny about this movie. It rambles without direction, loaded with trite slapstick and hollow sentiment. Even Roberto Benigni’s biggest critics will agree that Greggio makes his fellow countryman – in comparison – seem like a comic genius.

Review Written

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