{"id":11755,"date":"2025-04-23T00:59:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T04:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11755"},"modified":"2025-04-23T00:59:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T04:59:29","slug":"switching-channels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/04\/23\/switching-channels\/","title":{"rendered":"Switching Channels"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Switching Channels<\/strong> (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 105 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ted Kotcheff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jonathan Reynolds\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michel Legrand\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Francois Protat\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 4, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds, Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty, Henry Gibson, George Newbern, Al Waxman, Ken James, Barry Flatman, Ted Simonett, Anthony Sherwood, Joe Silver, Charles Kimbrough, Monica Parker, Allan Royal, Fiona Reid, Andre Mayers, Bill Randolph, Richard Comar, Grant Cowan, Wayne Fleming, Laura Robinson, Angelo Rizacos, Tony Rosato, Jackie Richardson.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $9.1M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0You\u2019ll probably like Switching Channels<\/strong> a lot better if you don\u2019t compare to His Girl Friday, the classic 1940 screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as a pair of bickering exes working at a newspaper (he\u2019s the editor; she\u2019s a reporter). They displayed amazing chemistry together. They exchanged barbs and insults like rapid-fire bullets. That\u2019s how you knew they still loved each other. Doesn\u2019t love work in mysterious ways?<\/p>\n

\u00a0There is NOBODY who could possibly recreate the magic of Grant and Russell. Many have tried, most notably Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner in Switching Channels<\/strong>, an updated remake set at a 24-hour TV news channel. They do a serviceable job as director and star reporter respectively. The ex-spouses exchange banter, but it doesn\u2019t have the same zing as their predecessors. Reportedly, Burt and Kathleen couldn\u2019t stand each other. He resented playing second fiddle to a woman and made his feelings clear on day one. She couldn\u2019t stand his ego and sexism. It got very tense on set. Many times, co-star Christopher Reeve had to act as referee between the feuding actors. The two leads give decent individual performances, but their interactions feel forced. Not the best look for a rom-com.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Overworked reporter Christy Colleran (Turner, Romancing the Stone) takes a much-needed vacation after an on-air breakdown. She returns a few weeks later with a fiancee, wealthy sporting goods company owner Blaine Bingham (Reeve, Superman I-IV). She informs her boss\/ex-husband Sully (Reynolds, The Cannonball Run) that she\u2019s resigning to marry Blaine. In addition, she\u2019s moving to New York where she\u2019ll host her own morning show.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sully wants to keep her in Chicago so he gives her a plum assignment, interviewing condemned killer Ike Roscoe (Gibson, Laugh-In) just hours before his scheduled execution. Many, including Christy, think he ought to be pardoned because the victim was the drug dealer responsible for his son\u2019s death. He had no idea the guy was an undercover cop. It\u2019s become a hot-button political issue between the two gubernatorial candidates; Ridnitz (Beatty, The Big Easy) and the sitting governor (Kimbrough, Murphy Brown). The former pulls all sorts of dirty tricks to make sure Ike dies before the governor can pardon him. It results in Ike escaping and setting off a massive manhunt that Christy becomes a part of.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, Sully does everything he can to delay Christy and Blaine\u2019s departure including booking every seat on every flight and train to New York. He also exploits Blaine\u2019s fear of heights by having a junior reporter (Newbern, Father of the Bride I & II) take him to the top of a skyscraper under the pretense of purchasing something for his wife-to-be.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Ted Kotcheff (Weekend at Bernie\u2019s), Switching Channels<\/strong> is a pretty funny movie. It\u2019s one of those madcap deals with people running around like lunatics. There\u2019s a funny running joke about a copy machine, a stand-in for the rolltop desk in His Girl Friday. It\u2019s uneven at times with the movie attempting to be both a screwball comedy and a pointed satire of the media. Kotcheff doesn\u2019t seem to be quite sure which road to take so he keeps changing direction. The result is a bumpy ride.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Despite the in-fighting on set, the cast does a decent job keeping the film afloat. Reynolds plays the same cocky character he always plays minus the trademark laugh. Turner dials back the sexy, sultry thing to play a hard-nosed reporter trying to deny her love for the news now that she\u2019s found Mr. Right. Reeve once again pulls out his mild-mannered persona to play the clueless, slightly arrogant fiancee competing with a mighty foe, the news. Beatty is convincingly sleazy as a politician who will use every dirty trick to win the nomination. Gibson is very good as the condemned prisoner with an affinity for magic and Houdini.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like I said, Switching Channels<\/strong> is a remake of His Girl Friday which itself was an adaptation of the 1928 play The Front Page (also a 1931 film). I\u2019ve made clear which version I prefer, but Switching Channels<\/strong> has its own charm. I like comedies where everybody runs around in a state of confusion. It\u2019s frenetic at times, but Kotcheff does a good job with traffic control. It never gets completely out of hand. It\u2019s a just a fun movie with plenty of laughs and a good side story about politics and the legal system. The central love triangle, which reaches a predictable conclusion, is made less interesting by the apparent tension between Burt and Kathleen. They won\u2019t make you forget about Grant and Russell anytime soon or EVER! Still, it\u2019s a likable enough movie.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Switching Channels (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 105 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ted Kotcheff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jonathan Reynolds\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michel Legrand\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Francois Protat\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 4, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds, Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty, Henry Gibson, George Newbern, Al Waxman, Ken James, Barry Flatman, Ted Simonett, Anthony Sherwood, Joe Silver, Charles Kimbrough, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Switching-Channels-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11755"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11775,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11755\/revisions\/11775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}