Funland Reviews

After its 1987 premiere at Cannes, FUNLAND received only a few theatrical screenings, and was released on videocassette in 1990. Its striking package artwork, featuring a frenzied sniper in whiteface, might lead potential cassette renters to assume the film is a thriller. Wrong: FUNLAND is a haphazard black comedy, with a good concept but bland (or absent) punch lines. It's the start of a new season at Funland, a second-rate amusement park that helps promote a nationwide fast-food chain, Brewster's Pizzeria Palaces. This year, however, there are rumors that Funland is to be sold. "The day that they take the park away from me, it will have to be over my dead body!" declares owner-operator Angus Perry (William Windom). In the next scene, Perry's corpse is carted off. Apparently he has killed himself. His widow sells out to a corporation controlled by the DiMaurios, organized crime bigwigs. The DiMaurios have big plans for Funland, including the introduction of Las Vegas showgirls and ghoulish midway rides. But they also announce salary cuts for all employees, and evict Funland's "goodwill ambassador," an unstable clown called Bruce Burger (David Lander, playing a sort of pizza-pushing equivalent of Ronald McDonald), from his dressing room. Taking up residence in the shuttered wax museum, he begins to sink into madness, his descent hastened by the arrival of the "real" Bruce Burger, Chad Peller (Lane Davies), the clown who does the national commercials for Brewster's Pizzeria Palaces. One day in the employee cafeteria, the dejected Funland clown encounters the moldering ghost of Perry, who denies his death was a suicide. Revealing that he was murdered by Larry DiMaurio (Richard Reiner), Perry explains the mobsters plan to close Funland and exploit its real estate. Meanwhile, the DiMaurios find that they do not yet own controlling stock in the park. Funland's original accountant, one Neal Stickney, has that honor, and he seems to have vanished. As it happens, crazy old Bruce Burger is really Neal Stickney. The accountant put on the greasepaint after an earlier mental breakdown, and now, totally insane, he has taken to shooting at the other Bruce Burger from Funland's clock tower. Larry DiMaurio is sent to kill Stickney, but Stickney plugs the mobster first. In the ironic, TAXI DRIVER-style epilog, Stickney is hailed as the heroic rescuer of Bruce Burger. Now the owner-operator of Funland, Stickney is back to normal. Or is he? FUNLAND tries desperately to be an adroit dark satire like THE HOSPITAL or SMILE (appropriating a running gag from the latter). Certainly the setting is rich in comic possibilities; every county seems to have its own little Coney Island (the park used here is actually Six Flags Over Georgia). But the film proves to be a weak, disorganized cavalcade of grotesques, lacking in real wit. Cowriters Bonnie and Terry Turner have contributed to the scripts of "Saturday Night Live," which may explain why FUNLAND fails to maintain any of its themes for any longer than an average blackout sketch. The satire of corporate greed turns into a tired burlesque of mafia types, with Robert Sacchi as an elderly don, complete with grossly distended cheeks. And since Sacchi is best known for his uncanny Humphrey Bogart impression, he turns up in the wax museum in Bogie's CASABLANCA suit as one of Bruce Burger's delusions. Subplots involving gay choreographers, rascally teens, and visiting celebrities are introduced, then dumped. The main storyline, revolving around Stickney's torment, is well-conceived but ill-executed. Lander, fated to be forever remembered as Squiggy from TV's "Laverne and Shirley," works hard at the role of Stickney (remaining in clown makeup until his final scene), but his character lacks pathos. For one thing, he's already crazy as the picture begins, so there's not much dramatic progression involved in his decline. At no point is he actually shown enjoying his work as Funland's "goodwill ambassador," so his loss of the position carries little impact. The script also botches the portrait of the other Bruce Burger; a classically trained actor who hates dressing up as a wedge of pizza to entertain brats, he's never shown in character as the clown. The film's best role goes to Windom as the fatherly boss from beyond the grave, but mention should also be made of the contribution of comedienne Jan Hooks ("Saturday Night Live"), who plays an office sex object and adds an unbilled appearance as a frumpy coworker. And if you pay close attention you'll catch a glimpse of actress-model Marla Maples, best-known for her relationship with financier Donald Trump. (Profanity, violence, adult situations.)