Curdled whimsy continues to be the hallmark of Shelley Long's post-"Cheers" career, as demonstrated in FROZEN ASSETS, the comedienne's latest film appearance since departing the long-running hit sitcom.
Zach Shepard ("L.A. Law" star Corbin Bernsen, previously paired with Long in HELLO AGAIN) is a mediocre middle-management executive in a mammoth Los Angeles holding company who's bucking for a VP spot after the former holder of the office has a mental meltdown. In order to earn the promotion,
Shepard must revive a foundering smalltown bank in Hobart, Oregon, managed by Dr. Grace Murdock (Long). Actually, it's a sperm bank which has been run into the red by too many bum donations and her charitable tendencies towards women unable to conceive.
Along the way Bernsen picks up a hitchhiker, Newton Patterson (Larry Miller), who's actually a mental clinic escapee on his way back to his mom's home in Hobart. After finding that his company has put him up in the vermin-infested town brothel, Shepard takes up Patterson on his offer to bunk with
him and his dotty mom (Dody Goodman) and even hires Patterson to help him out at the bank. The plan to save the clinic comes from a major sperm merchant offering a cash infusion only if Shepard can come up with a massive quantity of spilled seed within a tight deadline.
The enterprising Shepard concocts a contest to award part of the profits to the local man with the highest sperm count. He converts the clinic into something resembling a masturbation salon and shoehorns local hookers (including former sitcom star Teri Copley) into tight-fitting nurse uniforms to
staff the facility and stimulate business. The clinic meets the deadline and Shepard delivers the goods. However, his boss reneges on the promised promotion, causing Shepard to abscond with the semen and hold it hostage. Cornered by cops, Shepard dumps the truckload of frozen "assets" into the
town's river.
At the climactic town rally to give out the sperm award, Shepard is about to confess that there is no prize when Patterson reveals his true identity--he's the owner of Shepard's company. He steps forward with the prize money and gives Shepard his boss's job and first assignment--to get the truck
out of the river before it creates a semen slick. Moved by Shepard's heroics, Grace, whose attraction to Shepard has been festering throughout the film, finally dumps her stuffy beau, Lewis Crandall (Gerrit Graham), and follows her new man.
Those finding jokes about masturbation and sperm banks endlessly amusing may enjoy FROZEN ASSETS. Others will most likely find it endlessly annoying. The screenplay suffers from the same kind of fuzzy underdevelopment that has also kept Long's past films, such as DON'T TELL HER IT'S ME and TROOP
BEVERLY HILLS, from being anything special. Like the other two, FROZEN ASSETS, despite an original premise, abounds in stock situations predictably resolved by cardboard-thin characters with no real comic bite, creating that all-too-familiar deja vu feeling, and this long before the cutesy,
sperm-infested credits have finished unfurling.
As might be drawn from the synopsis, Long really doesn't have all that much to do except struggle with her attraction to Bernsen while being appalled by his tacky tactics to return the bank to profitability. As a result, she's afforded little chance to showcase her gift for physical comedy,
getting her only real laugh when she dives off a dais at the end to follow her man. Of the rest of the cast, Miller, a top stand-up comic, gets the film's best laughs by bringing imaginative shtick to his over-familiar character. Bernsen tries no less gamely than Miller, but he never makes much of
an impression, and becomes the main casualty of the wan scripting.
Director George Miller (THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER, THE NEVERENDING STORY II) keeps the action moving smoothly and crisply, but FROZEN ASSETS never manages to amount to much more than moving wallpaper, inoffensive but relentlessly uninteresting. (Profanity, adult situations.) leave a comment
