{"id":6685,"date":"2024-10-25T10:25:16","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6685"},"modified":"2024-10-25T10:25:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:25:16","slug":"hunk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/hunk\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hunk <\/strong>(1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crown International\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Lawrence Bassoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Lawrence Bassoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Kurtz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bryan England\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 6, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: John Allen Nelson, Steve Levitt, Rebeccah Bush, Robert Norse, Avery Schreiber, Deborah Shelton, James Coco, Cynthia Szigeti, Hilary Shepard, Melanie Vincz, Page Mosely, Doug Shanklin, J. Jay Saunders.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $1.7M (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0Actor James Coco died about a week before Hunk<\/strong> was released. He\u2019s the lucky one. He didn\u2019t have to live with the shame of being part of this awful comedy that stinks even by the low, LOW standards of its mother studio, Crown International (Weekend Pass, Tomboy). In it, he plays the Devil, a campy piece of work who goes by the moniker \u201cDr. D\u201d. He\u2019s the temporary owner of the soul of the protagonist, a dorky computer programmer named Bradley Brinkman (Levitt, Last Resort), as part of a deal made in exchange for a better version of himself. Yes, Hunk<\/strong> is basically an 80s version of Faust meaning all literary value is removed and replaced by slapstick and sex jokes. If only it was funny too.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bradley\u2019s story begins with a wish he makes while trying to come up with a money-making program that will allow him to hold onto his job. When he types that he\u2019d sell his soul for success, the computer magically comes to life and prints out \u201cThe Yuppie Program\u201d. Naturally, it becomes hugely popular and makes Bradley a workplace superstar. His boss (70s holdover Schreiber) gives him a large bonus and the entire summer off to come up with another big idea.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bradley rents a rundown house in Sea Spray, a swanky coastal town that\u2019s playground to the rich and shameless. His plan is to research the yuppie lifestyle to gain a better understanding of it. The problem is the yuppies- rude, arrogant, snobbish a-holes all- don\u2019t like him. They mock him mercilessly. Poor Bradley even gets sand kicked in his face. Instead of gambling a stamp on a free Charles Atlas bodybuilding book, he signs a contract (in blood, of course) with Old Scratch through his emissary O\u2019Brien (Shelton, Body Double), a hot girl only he can see.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When Bradley wakes up the next morning, he\u2019s been transformed into a beefcake god named Hunk Golden (Nelson, Killer Klowns from Outer Space). He\u2019s a perfect specimen of manhood who becomes instantly popular with the other yuppies, especially the ladies. He loves his new lifestyle, but as the summer progresses, he starts to fret about the deal he made; in particular, the part about the Devil owning his soul for eternity. Luckily, there\u2019s a clause in his contract that allows him to reclaim his soul (and old life) if he\u2019s not fully satisfied. He has until midnight Labor Day to decide.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hunk does exceedingly well with the ladies. He has a lot of sex which, in a PG movie, means a series of shots of beautiful women at his front door. Eventually, his heart belongs to just one. That would be Sunny (Bush, The Men\u2019s Club), the therapist he talks to about his dilemma. Forgetting professional boundaries for a minute, how smart is it to get romantically involved with a possibly delusional, potentially dangerous individual? I guess common sense isn\u2019t a requirement in her field.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I am astonished that Hunk<\/strong> lasted as long as it did it theaters, one full week. Usually a movie this bad would be yanked after five days. I missed it during its theatrical run. (Un)fortunately, I didn\u2019t have to wait long to see it as it made a quick trip to video (early June, I think). Watching it in the comfort of my basement didn\u2019t ease the sting of this painfully unfunny comedy, miscalculated at every turn by writer-director Lawrence Bassoff, the guy behind Weekend Pass. Damned if Hunk<\/strong> doesn\u2019t make the T&A flick look like a comic masterpiece. At least it had T&A. The closest thing in Hunk<\/strong> is girls in bikinis. We do, however get numerous shots of Nelson not wearing a shirt or wearing only briefs. We get it, he\u2019s a hunk, a tanned, chiseled god to be admired like a statue of Atlas. That\u2019s not the only thing he has in common with a statue; they share the same acting abilities. I strongly suspect he was cast for his looks alone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s hard to pinpoint what\u2019s most unfunny about Hunk<\/strong> since almost none of it works. If pressed, I\u2019d have to go with the mean yuppies who give Bradley a hard time from the second they lay eyes on his scrawny body. They\u2019re not characters, they\u2019re exaggerated caricatures. They have names like Alexis Cash, Laurel Springs, Coaster Royce and Skeet Mecklenburger (see Roger Ebert\u2019s \u201cFirst Law of Funny Names\u201d). They make fun of Bradley\u2019s beat-up junker of a car and his knock-off designer clothes. Skeet, a professional athlete, assaults him under the pretense of teaching him the rules of volleyball (aka \u201cv-ball\u201d). I get that they\u2019re supposed to be horrible people, but Bassoff makes them cartoonishly horrific instead. I was more horrified than amused.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only aspect of Hunk<\/strong> that doesn\u2019t suck is Coco. Try to forget he was nominated for an Oscar (Best Supporting Actor, Only When I Laugh) only five years earlier. His willingness to camp it up in this stupid movie is admirable. His Dr. D appears sporadically, each time decked out in different historical garb. He likes to revisit the worst events in history to ensure they still happen. He\u2019s the reason for the half-star in the rating I gave this movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Make no mistake, Hunk<\/strong> is a bad movie Coco\u2019s presence notwithstanding. At 102 minutes, it\u2019s too long. As I\u2019ve already implied, the acting is terrible. In some cases (e.g. Schreiber\u2019s stereotypical Greek boss), it\u2019s downright embarrassing. And let\u2019s not forget the weird in Hunk<\/strong>. That would be the neighbor Chachka (Szigeti, European Vacation), a nosy, gossipy type who calls herself a \u201ccollector\u201d for which the clinical term is \u201ckleptomaniac\u201d in this case. A cross between Lainie Kazan and Wendie Jo Sperber, she\u2019d be more at home on Miami Beach than Yuppie Beach. How is it the yuppies accept her with her loud outfits and costume jewelry, but not Bradley? And despite being introduced as a major character, she largely disappears for the second half.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only other notable thing about Hunk<\/strong> is one of the background extras being a very young Brad Pitt in his first screen appearance. I\u2019m fairly certain he leaves this one off his resume. Even so, it doesn\u2019t change the fact that Hunk<\/strong> is a sizable hunk of crap.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hunk (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crown International\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Lawrence Bassoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Lawrence Bassoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Kurtz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bryan England\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 6, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: John Allen Nelson, Steve Levitt, Rebeccah Bush, Robert Norse, Avery Schreiber, Deborah Shelton, James Coco, Cynthia Szigeti, Hilary Shepard, Melanie Vincz, Page Mosely, Doug Shanklin, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7082,"comment_status":"closed","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-6685","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\/10\/Hunk-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\/6685","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=6685"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7084,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6685\/revisions\/7084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}