Disorderlies (1987)

Disorderlies lost me when the trailer started with footage of The Three Stooges.

Clearly this lowest-common-denominator comedy which features the popular rap group The Fat Boys was suppose to be either an homage or a cash-in to the Stooges.  Actually, it’s both and that’s not a good thing.  What Michael Schultz has given the group – who are sweet and charming – is a crude, vulgar comedy in which much of the material is derived from their weight, and from their lack of intelligence.

The plot has them losing their jobs at a Brooklyn hospital after they are caught consuming a massive number of cakes.  Out of work. they are hired by a compulsive gambler named WInslow (Anthony Geary) who wants to pay off his debts by killing off his rich uncle Albert (Ralph Bellamy).  His plan: Hire The Fat Boys to be his caretaker in hopes that their ineptitude will help the old man quicken his journey to the sweet hereafter.  Yet, as it turns out, the boys aren’t the human bowling alley that he was hoping for.  In fact, the old man kinda likes his new orderlies.  That means, of course, that the nephew must now hatch a different plan to kill his uncle himself.

Are you getting all this?  Do you care?  Could you possibly care.  To write this plot feels like I’m wasting precious seconds.  To watch these events unfold turn minutes into hours and hours into days.  It’s a struggle.  The director Michael Shultz used the group to much better effect in Krush Groove.  What happened here?