(1981, US, 88 min) Dir Andy Farmer. Cast Tommy Chong, Christopher Guest, Kirk Douglas, Jack Palance.
Dismal stoner cowboy ‘comedy’ featuring Chong sans Cheech and an awfully miscast Guest (who mostly seems to be asleep upright on his horse). They play low-level crooks in the Old West smuggling drugs up from Mexico to the big cities up north and evading the law on the one hand (Douglas, manic) and their sinister rival the Black Moustache (Palance, scenery chewing) on the other. With no discernible plot bar their travels from one place to the other and no perceptible peril via their low-consequence run-in’s with both Douglas and Palance there is only infantile word play, flatulence, the prostitution of women and the inherent hilarity of marijuana left to get by on. Even the potentially glorious scenery provides no relief – it’s shot by first-time director and future journeyman Farmer as though Monument Valley had for him the same visual interest as an inner city laundromat. The most fun to be had is in spotting cameos from John Candy, Harry Shearer and Paul ‘Pee Wee’ Reubens, all acting away under three acres of fake facial hair each.
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