John Candy is on record as saying he feared something bad was going to happen if he went to Mexico to make this film. Well, two bad things happened. John Candy died, and this film was made. How's that for bad karma? Wagons East is a stupendously bad film on just about every level. A scarce chuckle or two in almost two hours is about all you can expect. Only a few scenes with Candy are rewarding, mostly because they will remind you of how funny he had been in the past. With this film, we see perhaps an interesting idea for an SNL sketch stretched into an insufferably long film. We see some decent character actors wasted, while the wrong ones get most of the screen time. And worse than anything, we see a John Candy that is painful to watch. He was heavier than ever, and just looks like he'd rather be any place else. How in the world did they find a horse strong enough to carry him?
The story deals with a handful of people ready to give up on life in the old west and start a wagon train heading back to St. Louis where they can give city life another try. There are a couple of cute early gags involving the oft-robbed town banker and a gay bookstore proprietor selling a cowboy a copy of Pride and Prejudice so he can use it for toilet paper. These are interesting observations, but again they cannot be the basis for a feature length film. Once the train gets rolling east, what little laugh well we had dries up rather quickly. How long did they milk the Donner Party angle? This might have been good as a throw-away gag later in the film, but the fact that Candy's character was their wagon master too is brought up again and again and again. Any of the half-dozen subplots involving people on this journey could have been cut and actually would have improved the picture. We just don't care about these people. What has Richard Lewis ever done to be the star of a theoretically mainstream comedy? The guy isn't funny. At all. Never was. Too bad the last film Candy ever did turned out this bad. Its doubtful that Canadian Bacon would be much better, so I just won't even watch that one. 3 of 10 stars.
The Hound.
The story deals with a handful of people ready to give up on life in the old west and start a wagon train heading back to St. Louis where they can give city life another try. There are a couple of cute early gags involving the oft-robbed town banker and a gay bookstore proprietor selling a cowboy a copy of Pride and Prejudice so he can use it for toilet paper. These are interesting observations, but again they cannot be the basis for a feature length film. Once the train gets rolling east, what little laugh well we had dries up rather quickly. How long did they milk the Donner Party angle? This might have been good as a throw-away gag later in the film, but the fact that Candy's character was their wagon master too is brought up again and again and again. Any of the half-dozen subplots involving people on this journey could have been cut and actually would have improved the picture. We just don't care about these people. What has Richard Lewis ever done to be the star of a theoretically mainstream comedy? The guy isn't funny. At all. Never was. Too bad the last film Candy ever did turned out this bad. Its doubtful that Canadian Bacon would be much better, so I just won't even watch that one. 3 of 10 stars.
The Hound.