The Squeeze (1987)

The Squeeze is not a movie, it’s a regurgitation.  Whatever caper comedies have taken place, this movie employs all of the cliches including the caper, the villains, the shoot-outs, the chases, the comic shenanigans and, of course, the SealTest romance which contains no passion, no sex, just a lot of the lovers being in the same place at the same time.

The lovers are Rae Don Chong and Michael Keaton, actors that I have liked before in better movies and will doubtless find appealing again in movies to come.  Their plight as actors is to collect a paycheck.  Their plight as characters is about as predictable as what you had for lunch.  She is a detective and he’s a gambler who are thrown together for a story that is really more confusing than it has any reason to be.

Seems that a ring of white-collar criminals have been magnetizing the ping pong balls that determine the winners in the New York State Lottery.  This leads to a lot of stupid nonsense involving Chong and Keaton on the run from bad guys who want the contents of a black box mailed to Keaton by his ex-wife.

See?  Do you care?  Who could care about this plot?  Yeah, I mean, there might be some intrigue in the idea of a bunch of guys who are able to pull off a scam to fix the New York Lottery, but where is it in scenes that involve the two lovers trapped in a bathroom while being assaulted by a gangster played by Meatloaf?

I’d like to see a documentary about the New York State Lottery.  How does it keep itself safe?  How does it operate?  How does it make money for the state?  What is the machinery that goes into it?  What happens to the people who win the big money jackpot?  Is there skill?  Is it all just luck.  I’m far more interested in that than anything in The Squeeze.

Next movie, please!