John Chard

Split right down the middle when allowing for nostalgia factor. Bruce Willis made this film in the middle of his stint in the hugely popular TV Show, Moonlighting, and it's very much in keeping with the fun side of that particular show. I remember watching this at the cinema many years ago with my then new girlfriend, and I remember laughing heartily as Bruce prats about falling over things and being thrust into ridiculous situations caused by the (then) luscious Kim Basinger. Viewing it now 20 years later I still have a soft spot for it, but it plays out more as a time capsule oddity in view of Willis's subsequent career. He was not very far away from making action genre template Die Hard, and that is the context in which to view this early comedic effort. The plot revolves around Walter Davis (Willis), who needs a date for a very important business dinner, his brother sets him up on a blind date with his wife's cousin Nadia (Basinger) with the express warning of not getting her drunk as she goes wild when taking in too much booze. Naturally things go from chaos to bigger chaos as Nadia promptly gets drunk and tears Walter's world to shreds. Some fun set pieces and tidy humour dialogue keep the proceedings jovial enough, but a running gag with one of Nadia's ex boyfriends turning up quickly becomes annoying, while the standard plot gag of Nadia ruining everything also becomes very tiresome. It's has its moments but just not enough to lift the film above average, the two leads do well enough to keep the mood going, but ultimately the film for me is straight down the middle with a rating of 5/10.