By Geno McGahee
Shelley Long was very popular on CHEERS and tried to turn that into a movie career, but it just wasn’t there. She did HELLO AGAIN, TROOP BEVERLY HILLS and OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, but none of them made much of a dent and didn’t make Long the superstar that many though that she was destined to be. After watching OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, I don’t think there was any chance for her to be a big draw at the box office.
Lauren (Long) is a wannabe actress that signed up for a workshop held by Stanislav Korzenowski (Robert Prosky). I was trying to figure out where I knew Prosky from, but it finally hit me. He was in MRS.DOUBTFIRE as the boss of the network that eventually put Doubtfire’s show on the air. It’s not that he was amazing in it, but I just really like that movie and have seen it a million times. Maybe it’s fair to say that Prosky ruled in it. He probably got a lot of tail because of that role.
Lauren starts dating Michael (Peter Coyote) and all seems to be going well until he goes into a flower shop and it explodes. Lauren goes to identify the body and runs into Sandy (Bette Midler), who is also there to identify the body. Michael was dating both of them and the two are immediately at each other’s throats, but the only thing that they seem to agree on is the fact that the body is not that of Michael’s. The corpse had a small dick and Michael was apparently hung like a horse. If you’re going to fake your death and you are hung like a horse, you get a dead body with a horse-sized dick to fool people. It’s pretty fucking obvious.
The two decide to team up to find out who Michael wants to be with. Both are certain that Michael will choose them, especially Sandy, who brags about her sexual talents. When you look at the two, it’s easy to imagine that Midler would be crazier in the sack, but Long is more attractive. Pick your poison. I wouldn’t throw either out of bed for eating crackers. I bet Midler likes crackers.
They go to Lauren’s apartment and there are Russian agents going through everything. When they are detected, they start chasing them only to be blown away by FBI guys, but they aren’t sure what is going on. They start following clues to find Michael and they are led to a brick apartment building in the worst part of the city. They go up the stairs and some little shit tries to rob them with a fake gun. They shake him down and take his gun and proceed to go up the stairs and find two drug dealers at a table. This is where the film starts to annoy me.
Lauren kicks in the door and holds the gun and she pretends to be a police officer using a bad New Yorker accent. I think that’s what it was. Long’s acting was just so terrible and she just doesn’t have the comedic timing or instincts that Midler has. The more Long hammed it up with her cop impression, the more I wanted to shut this movie off, but I was already invested in it and the remote control was sitting on the chair across the room.
The duo takes money from the dealers and get another clue, leading them to the airport. They need to find out what flight Michael was on, but they can’t get it because that information is only given to law enforcement. I was praying that this would not lead to another Shelley Long impression, but I didn’t pray hard enough. Long pretended to be Polish or Russian or some other ethnicity, using some bad accent to the airport employee to try to get the information. The employee didn’t buy the impression, but was amused enough to give the information. That is unacceptable. I hope they fired that person’s ass…not only for giving out the information but for finding Long entertaining.
They track down Michael but when they confront him, he tries to kill them both and basically tells them that they were just something to do. They learn that Michael is a total prick that stole a virus that could wipe out California and they have changed their agenda from getting their man back to saving the world. They end up in the west and meet up with a tracker, Frank (George Carlin), and George Carlin is awesome in anything. This is no exception. He agrees to help them track down Michael but he finds himself in a lot of danger as well.
We are tortured with another Long impression as she pretends to be a Mexican guy, I guess. I don’t know why the producers got a hard on for Long impressions. There wasn’t one fucking person on the set that said “these impressions suck. Let’s not have her do them.”? It really takes away from the film. Midler should have been more of the focus. She can be very funny at times, but I think the purpose of this film was to launch Long into superstardom.
We have a final showdown with Michael, Lauren, Sandy and Frank, leading to the good guys winning and Lauren and Sandy realizing that they have developed a strong friendship despite the rocky start. OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE had potential. The story is decent and a female buddy comedy was a good idea, but Shelley Long was absolutely the wrong person for the role. Bette Midler was great as usual, but the constant bad acting and terrible impressions by Long sank this film. I wonder if Long was so far up her own ass that it contributed to this performance. It was just so bad.
OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE is a take or leave sort of movie. There was enough here to make it watchable but there was potential for it to be much better.
