Movie Review:
Shakes the clown (1992)
MOVIE REVIEW:
Shakes the clown (1992)
Shakes the clown (1992)
TITLE: Shakes the Clown
RELEASE DATE: March 13, 1992
TRAILER: CLICK HERE
STREAMING/RENT: CLICK HERE
SUMMARY
Shakes is a clown who struggles with alcoholism, unrequited love, and a career slump. When a fellow clown gets murdered, Shakes becomes the prime suspect.
He must solve the mystery and clear his name, dealing with personal challenges and an evil rival clown along the way.
THE SOCIAL COMMENTARY IN THE FILM
There’s a lot of social commentary in this movie, which I didn’t expect. The film explores alcoholism, and sexual harassment, and uses absurdity to expose the hypocrisy and corruption of the entertainment industry. Apparently, Bobcat wrote this to mirror the standup comedy industry at the time and his own feelings trying to come up in that world. I think I’d enjoy a documentary about this more than I enjoyed this movie.
WHAT I LOVED
It was funnier than I thought it would be. I was pretty impressed with most of the cast (more on this in a second) and I thought almost everyone did a fantastic job with the material and really leaning into the weirdness of the world of the film.
WHAT I DIDN’T
Deep sigh… the thing I didn’t like… was Robin Williams. I absolutely hated in his character (not in a good way) but worse, this completely felt like he was phoning it in. He was boring, not funny, annoying, and somehow completely out of place. It pains me to say that Robin is the thing I hated most about this film.
FAVORITE PARTS
“He drinks so much to forget he’s an alcoholic.”
The flask saving Shakes.
The idea of killing Judy onscreen at a kids’ show was fun to me.
OTHER THOUGHTS
I like this movie a lot better when Robin has a larger role and they called it DEATH TO SMOOCHY.