{"id":4119,"date":"2024-09-18T21:47:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T21:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4119"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:03:39","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:03:39","slug":"three-amigos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/18\/three-amigos\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Amigos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Three Amigos <\/strong>(1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 104 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, comic violence, sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Landis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin and Randy Newman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Elmer Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ronald W. Browne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 12, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short, Alfonso Arau, Patrice Martinez, Tony Plana, Joe Mantegna, Phillip Gordon, Kai Wulff, Norbert Weisser, Brian Thompson, Loyda Ramos, Fred Asparagus, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $39.2M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Where did Three Amigos<\/strong> go wrong? It takes some explaining, but the short answer is in the title. Sort of.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The movie centers on three silent film actors, played by Steve Martin (All of Me), Chevy Chase (Fletch) and Martin Short (SNL), who play the heroic trio \u201cThe Three Amigos\u201d in a series of westerns. As we all know, \u201camigos\u201d is Spanish for friends. It would appear that they\u2019re friends in both reel life AND real life. Wouldn\u2019t it have been funnier if the three actors couldn\u2019t stand each other off-screen? It would have opened up a world of possibilities. One obvious example is a clashing of egos. The writers could have had Martin and Chase constantly fighting over who should receive top billing while Short secretly tries to start a solo career because he thinks he\u2019s the real star of the show. This way, they have issues to resolve or set aside so they can work together as a team when faced with a dire situation in real life (as opposed to reel life). It\u2019s a serious misstep on the part of the writers, but that doesn\u2019t mean I didn\u2019t enjoy Three Amigos<\/strong>. I did. It\u2019s an amusing little comedy, but therein lies another problem. One expects a movie directed by John Landis to be more than \u201camusing\u201d. Remember the anarchic spirit of Animal House and Trading Places? Three Amigos<\/strong> feels too relaxed, like a siesta.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The people in the small Mexican village of Santo Poco live in fear of the bandit El Guapo (Arau, The Wild Bunch) and his gang. While searching for somebody to come to the rescue, Carmen (Martinez, the TV series Zorro) visits a church in town and watches a silent film starring \u201cThe Three Amigos\u201d- Lucky Day (Martin), Dusty Bottoms (Chase) and Ned Nederlander (Short). Believing them to be real heroes, she sends a telegram asking for their help.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile in Hollywood, the three actors get fired by studio boss Harry Flugleman (Mantegna, House of Games) after demanding a salary increase. The telegram arrives just seconds after they\u2019re ejected from the studio lot. Naturally, they misinterpret it as an invite to come put on a show for the villagers. Little do they know that they\u2019re about to face off against a very real and very dangerous foe. When they FINALLY realize what they\u2019ve gotten themselves into, their first instinct is to run. Eventually, and with nothing to return home to, they decide to stand up and defend the village.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Three Amigos<\/strong> starts off pretty good, especially with the movie-related stuff. It\u2019s set in 1916, the height of the silent film era. Landis recreates the style very well; it looks completely authentic. I\u2019m talking, of course, about the movie Carmen watches in the church. It was a regular practice for men to travel from one town to another showing movies. Not every town had a theater back then; film distribution was a completely different game. As a movie buff, I find stuff like that interesting. The scenes at the studio are actually pretty funny. Mantegna is a riot as the gruff, stingy studio boss. That\u2019s the thing, Three Amigos<\/strong> has a few decent bits, but they\u2019re scattered throughout the movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not long after the guys arrive in Mexico, they stop at a cantina where they perform a number (\u201cMy Little Buttercup\u201d) for the patrons who think they\u2019re associates of a German WWI pilot (Wulff, Firefox) who came in earlier looking for El Guapo. At least this scene has some energy; there appears to be a lack of it throughout most of Three Amigos<\/strong>. While the three leads have nice chemistry, Chase and Martin dial it way back. Short shows some enthusiasm, but not enough to sustain a whole movie. While I like the easy rapport among the three leads, I still think having them hate each other would have served the movie better.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The songs by Randy Newman, who also co-wrote the screenplay, are good. I like the scene where the Amigos sing \u201cBlue Shadows\u201d around a campfire. At times, Three Amigos<\/strong> is just plain silly- e.g. the Singing Bush, the Invisible Swordsman. Some of it is simply not funny like the \u201clip balm\u201d scene. Like Chase on SNL, Three Amigos<\/strong> stumbles and trips a lot. It has its moments, but as a whole it\u2019s something of a letdown. It\u2019s silly and good-natured, but considering the talent of both sides of the camera, it should have been much better.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three Amigos (1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 104 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, comic violence, sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Landis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin and Randy Newman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Elmer Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ronald W. Browne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 12, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short, Alfonso Arau, Patrice Martinez, Tony Plana, Joe Mantegna, Phillip Gordon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5621,"comment_status":"open","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-4119","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\/2024\/09\/Three-Amigos-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\/4119","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=4119"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5624,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4119\/revisions\/5624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}