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Checking Out

1989, Movie, R, 93 mins

Checking Out: Review

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Though hypochondria has provided many a funny movie moment--most notably in the work of Woody Allen--CHECKING OUT is too messy a film to maintain viewer interest in the subject. When his childhood friend and boss (Allan Havey) dies of a heart attack at a company barbecue after setting up one of his frequent tasteless jokes ("Why don't Italians have barbecues?"), advertising man Ray Macklin (Jeff Daniels) becomes a raging hypochondriac, convinced his own heart is about to fail. Between visits to physicians, Ray is obsessed with discovering the answer to the Italian barbecue question, as if it were the antidote to death. Not surprisingly, Ray's madness complicates his life and the lives of those who love him. Weakly scripted by Joe Eszterhas (MUSIC BOX, THE JAGGED EDGE) and sloppily directed by David Leland (whose eclectic mix of cinematic styles was much more successfully applied in WISH YOU WERE HERE than it is here), CHECKING OUT looks as if it was written as it was shot. Like Havey's one-liners, the film is little more than a string of comic vignettes that never quite work. Still, despite the awful roles with which they have been saddled, the actors turn in generally good performances. Cut to an hour, CHECKING OUT might have worked better as a made-for-TV production; as is, it is disappointing and frequently in bad taste. leave a comment
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