Pluskylang
Great Film overall
Derrick Gibbons
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
david-sarkies
I remember years ago, when I was a pimply faced teenager, that my peers absolutely loved this movie, and a part of me went along with them. I had seen it advertised on the back of a comic book and since it was named after a car, and I wasn't all that interested in cars, I expected that this film was going to be boring and thought no more of it. However, of late it had been sitting at the back of my mind, and I managed to track it down and watch it again, if only for old times sake.
Well, in short, it is really, really bad. Basically it is just one long Andrew Dice Clay comedy sketch. I can sort of understand why my peers may have liked the movie, particularly with the number of scantily clad women, and Fairlane's numerous sex jokes (including giving it a name), but sometimes we simply grow out of that phase of life. The other thing was that the acting was pretty atrocious, and really seemed to be stilted at times.
Anyway, the film begins with the lead singer of a heavy metal band (which sounds a lot like Van Halen) dies on stage of an alleged drug overdose, while Ford, who happens to be a 'Rock and Roll Detective', in that his clients, and cases, all involve the music industry, is finishing off another case involving a stalker. Anyway, he is approached by an old friend to find a woman that he claims to be his daughter (but in reality is just a groupy), and proceeds to meet an untimely end.
This film has all the typical tropes that you would expect from such a film, including the detective who is jealous because he is stuck with his dead-end job while Ford gets into all the cool clubs. However, the jokes end up wearing pretty thin after a while, and the ending has everything wound up quite conveniently, including bringing Ford and the girl that does like him together. Oh, and there is this kid that keeps on popping up, and it is only at the end that you find out why he seems to be always hanging around.
As I mentioned, I'd never heard of Andrew Dice Clay before this film, and really didn't think much about him afterwards. It was only after digging up this film from the dusty archives that I realised that they were making a really big deal about the guy. It turned out that he happens to be a stand-up comedian, but since I'd never seen any of his acts, or heard any of his jokes, the name really went over my head. In fact I've noticed that he hasn't seemed to have made all that many other films either. I guess that really says everything about this film, and that it is basically just some crude excuse for a bunch of buys to giggle at jokes that aren't all that funny.
roddekker
Favorite Movie Quote: "I'm so terrific, I even have my own toll-free number - 1-800-PERFECT" In his heyday Andrew Dice Clay may have been the only comic to ever sell-out Madison Square Gardens 2 nights in a row, but in his first starring vehicle, as Ford Fairlane, he just barely managed to squeak by with a 5-star rating from yours truly here.To be fair, I'm not particularly fond of the Andrew Dice Clay persona and on top of that the script for this film (which was clearly intended to be a showcase of snappy one-liners) was way too clumsy and crude to be fully appreciated by someone who hadn't already blindly sworn a solemn oath of allegiance and loyalty to this much-beloved comic.With something here to literally offend everyone, the leather-clad Clay swaggers and sneers and ultimately becomes the world's hippest detective, personified in the character of Ford Fairlane, who, for all of his apparent macho-man bragging, avoided real sexual encounters at all costs.As our story unfolds, Ford Fairlane soon finds himself (in between trading insults) hip-deep in the case-of-a-lifetime, where (during the course of this action-packed investigation) you can be sure that the women get slugged as often as the guys.While performing for a wild, cheering crowd at another sold-out rock concert, Bobby Black, the highly-regarded lead vocalist of the heavy metal band The Black Plague, suddenly collapses on stage and dies shortly into one of his most popular songs.Working closely with his loyal assistant, Jazz, Fairlane must now wade through a bizarre line-up of suspects, victims, and beautiful babes in order to uncover the true identity of Bobby Black's killer.As an intended feature highlight - To prove that he has even more talent in his baby finger than the rest of us do in our entire bodies - Andrew Dice Clay gets his ultimate moment of glory when he pushes a spineless, no-talent rocker out of the way in a recording studio, grabs up the microphone and shows us all just how a "real" rock'n'roller should sound.Believe me, it's a monumentally pathetic demonstration as Clay proves quite clearly to us all just how little talent he really had.
backus1611-1
If you ever needed to see whether to put a person in a position of power or not, this is the perfect movie to make them watch. If they like it, definitely no higher than a janitor. If they rightly see it as pretty stupid, then you can trust them with an important job. Just horribly bad. What a stupid story. This has not held up well. This detective is so smart, yet this moron can't figure out that after the house blows up, car blows up, do you think maybe they'll go after his office? No, lets just play around like a moron. Would be nice to have some jokes there, or at least jokes that someone smarter than a middle-schooler might laugh at. In fact, the only funny things were said by everyone but Ford Farlaine (Ed O'Neil's singing). He certainly has a dick fetish, or just isn't smart enough to make better jokes. Do you really think the joke where the guy falls through the tour bus is at all funny? So, if you like it, you're a janitor. Of course, now we'll get fans of it pretending to be brain surgeons etc. Well, I'm the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
makiprettywoman3
I never heard of Andre Dice Clay besides seeing him on the celebrity apprentice. He is one of these comedians that can be offensive. If you don't mind hearing a sex joke or something that someone might think is derogatory to women then you probably won't mind. This movie was made in 1990 well before things like South Park and The Hangover movies. In this movie you have Andre Dice Clay who plays Ford Fairlane "The Rock n' Roll Detective." Just the though of a rock n' roll detective sounds crazy. His character doesn't seem very nice and that's what he is. He says stuff that could be totally offensive and he doesn't care. This movie is filled with plenty of one liners. Part of what makes this movie good is all the one liners like "Hey Harry Shake Me!" This movie is cheesy but also really fun to watch.
