There have been many movies featuring Saturday Night Live cast-members like Coneheads (Dan Aykroyd), The Ladies Man (Tim Meadows) and Wayne’s World (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey). Tommy Boy features two cast-members - Chris Farley and David Spade - in a surprisingly not-really-funny, but amusing movie.
Farley plays Tommy, a recent seven-year college graduate, who returns home to help his dad (Brian Dennehy) run the family auto business. His dad marries Beverly (Bo Derek), but during the wedding reception he dies. Tommy is left to keep the business afloat from a hostile takeover by a rival company and from the bank. In order to save the company, Tommy embarks on a trip with Richard Hayden (David Spade) across country to sell the brake pads that Tommy’s dad proclaimed as the company’s future.
What struck me most about the film was the incredibly close relationship that Tommy has with his dad. Tommy is a sort of screw-up and doesn’t take most things seriously, but his dad sees through that. Underneath Tommy is an earnest and good-natured guy who cares for his family (even his rotten step-brother) and friends (pretty much his entire hometown). He gets it from his dad whose family business is strong because his relationships with his partners and workers are so strong.
Tommy Boy can be treated as a part-comedy/part-road movie hybrid. One road movie element is the glorification of the method of travel - usually an automobile. Richard loves his GTX and maintains it well. But throughout the film, Tommy manages to harm Richard’s beloved auto and by the end of the film it’s in such a shambles that it resembles a go-cart more than a car. There’s one scene where Richard and Tommy are driving and the car’s hood randomly opens up, blinding (who’s driving). The car zig zags through traffic and avoids cars and trucks before finally coming to a stop on the shoulder.
Seeing Tommy Boy for the first time in many years has gotten me to notice how unwell the film has aged. Some of Farley’s physical comedy didn’t get me motivated and pumped up as I remember being in the past. Could it be that my cynical views of today’s SNL and how “bad” it is compared to Farley’s SNL or Chevy Chase’s SNL? Perhaps. Maybe comedy itself has changed to the point where gross-out (Road Trip) or adult (Sideways) comedies are the only movies that can make me laugh. Tommy Boy fits somewhere in-between; although it’s a well-made film, TB just couldn’t put more than a smile on my face (except for that one scene where a part of Richard almost flies off when he gets a little too close to a car engine).
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