{"id":1375,"date":"2024-07-27T23:32:17","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T23:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1375"},"modified":"2024-10-14T12:43:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:43:43","slug":"first-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/27\/first-family\/","title":{"rendered":"First Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"First Family <\/strong>(1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 100 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, sexual humor)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Buck Henry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Buck Henry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ralph Burns\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fred J. Koenekamp\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 25, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Bob Newhart, Madeline Kahn, Gilda Radner, Richard Benjamin, Bob Dishy, Harvey Korman, Fred Willard, Rip Torn, Austin Pendleton, John Hancock, Julius Harris, Buck Henry, Roger Bowen.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $15.1M (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0Potential, it\u2019s a term that gets thrown around a lot. Be it an academically underachieving kid or a rough draft of a first novel, it\u2019s meant to inspire hope of improvement with a little (or a lot of) effort on the subject\u2019s part. It would have taken a whole lot of effort to fix First Family<\/strong>, more effort than anybody appears to be putting into it. It is, in a word, dreadful. To be more precise, it\u2019s not funny. By all rights, it should be, especially with its stellar comedy cast led by Bob Newhart. Instead, it\u2019s occasionally mildly amusing. Myself, I laughed once (and only once) at a sight gag shown in the previews. It\u2019s the only thing that prevents me from giving zero stars to First Family<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Back to potential, First Family<\/strong> has plenty of it. At its core, it\u2019s a political satire. It starts off as one too. It centers on President Manfred Link (Newhart), his family and his staff. Link is an incompetent boob who only got elected because his opponent died just days before the election. Even so, the dead guy still got 30 million votes. The First Lady, Constance (Kahn, Blazing Saddles), is clumsy and usually tipsy. Daughter Gloria (Radner, SNL) is a sex-crazy 28YO virgin who constantly tries to ditch Secret Service so she can get some. His cabinet consists of idiots no more competent than their leader. They are VP Shockley (Dishy, The Big Bus), Press Secretary Bunthorne (Benjamin, The Sunshine Boys), Chief of Staff Feebleman (Willard, Fun with Dick and Jane), Ambassador Spendor (Korman, Blazing Saddles) and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Dumpston (Torn, The Man Who Fell to Earth). I know what you\u2019re thinking. How could a comedy with an impressive roster like this possibly miss? It does, BIG TIME! Read on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0First Family<\/strong> starts off promisingly, but quickly goes downhill in not delivering the laughs tacitly promised by writer-director Buck Henry (Heaven Can Wait). It\u2019s at its best- as good as it gets, that is- early on when it focuses on the daily goings-on at the White House. We watch as Link and company fumble and stumble their way around running the country. If I had to pick up the biggest screw-up in Link\u2019s cabinet, it would be Ambassador Spendor who turns a routine UN meeting into an international incident after exchanging insults (by way of a translator) with the Middle Eastern delegate. It costs Link the swing vote on a measure he\u2019s trying to get passed. In order to get the needed swing vote, he turns to the fictional African county of Upper Gorm. He invites their ambassador (Harris, Live and Let Die) to the White House only to discover they\u2019re unable to communicate due to the language barrier. He brings in a translator Dr. Grade (Pendleton, What\u2019s Up, Doc?) who informs him he inadvertently agreed to visit Upper Gorm in a week\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s at this point First Family<\/strong> really starts to go off the rails. In fact, it would be fair to say it completely derails before crashing and burning in the realm of the truly bizarre. In other words, it gets weird and not at all in a good way. Why don\u2019t I just sum it up for you? Link goes to Gorm with his family and staff. It turns out they have a large supply of uranium-enriched soil, the by-product of a volcano on the island. The President of Gorm agrees to a trade in exchange for- get ready- a large number of middle-class Americans they can oppress as a minority. They want to be as much like America as possible. Oh, the visit also involves giant vegetables and human (virgin) sacrifice. I have to say this depiction of an African country is more offensive than the one in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. It\u2019s hard to believe what you could get away with in 1980 (or 1995 for that matter).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Why mince words? First Family<\/strong> is HORRIBLE! I was being generous when I said it was occasionally mildly amusing. Other than the one scene I alluded to earlier, it\u2019s not the least bit funny. It is an egregious waste of a talented cast. They flap, flail and mug to no avail. Henry\u2019s screenplay is utterly devoid of intelligence and wit. It\u2019s never particularly intelligent, but it gets increasingly stupider as it goes on. It stops making sense the last 20 minutes or so. It\u2019s absolutely tragic First Family<\/strong> went so horribly wrong. It has a seed of a good idea. A political satire of an inept President is rife with possibilities. All it needs is a more pointed script and stronger direction. Sadly, we\u2019re saddled with a lazy, pointless satire without bite. It\u2019s moronic, juvenile and loaded with offensive stereotypes like the Arab delegate replete with keffiyeh, thawb and knife is his belt. Hey, how did that get past White House security? I guess they\u2019re as incompetent as everyone else working there.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The saddest thing is I really, really, really wanted to see First Family<\/strong> when it came out. Naturally, I wasn\u2019t allowed. I finally saw it in winter \u201982 at my grandparents\u2019 house. I didn\u2019t know what to make of it, so I just said I liked it. Also, I wondered why it was rated R. There isn\u2019t a single f-word and there\u2019s no nudity. Maybe it\u2019s the sexual humor? Today, it would get a PG-13. By any rating, First Family<\/strong> is still a colossal stinker. It hasn\u2019t improved with age. It is an absolute nadir of comedy and every cast member\u2019s career. It ought to be impeached.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Family (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 100 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, sexual humor)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Buck Henry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Buck Henry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ralph Burns\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fred J. Koenekamp\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 25, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Bob Newhart, Madeline Kahn, Gilda Radner, Richard Benjamin, Bob Dishy, Harvey Korman, Fred Willard, Rip Torn, Austin Pendleton, John Hancock, Julius Harris, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/First-Family-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\/1375","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=1375"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1957,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions\/1957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}