zardoz-13 Chevy Chase plays a depressed air traffic controller who acquires telekinetic powers after glowing green nuclear waste liquid from a tanker truck on the highway splashes out onto him. "Groove Tube" director Ken Shapiro has assembled a quality cast, and the premise generates some amusing moments in this average romantic comedy. The logic between our hero's affliction and the powers that he gets seems fractured. Nuclear waste usually precipitates debilitating diseases rather than spectacular telekinetic powers. The first scene at the air traffic control center is reminiscent of a "Saturday Night Live" skit with everybody preoccupied with other matters than the aircraft they are supervising in the skies above New York City. After Max (Chevy Chase of "Foul Play") gets off duty and heads home, our ill-fated protagonist has to contend with mechanical problems with his car. First, he retracts his moon roof, and the handle comes off in his fist. Second, he then finds himself jammed between trucks, and the truck in front of him is loaded down with caged chickens. Third, chicken feathers swirl onto his windshield, through his moon roof, and onto his face. He tries to remove the feathers from his windshield with washer fluid, but he showers himself with his own water. Clearly, this scene anticipates Max's encounter with the nuclear waste truck. Afterward, he has to deal with the departure of his girlfriend Darcy (Patti D'Arbanville), and this predicament pushes him over the edge into massive depression. One of the funnier moments has Max using his powers when he gets upset about a rival, Barry, has convinced Darcy to go out on a date. While Max and Darcy are arguing over her date with Barry, Max's rage grows to the point that he makes a C-47 ashtray fly around the room. Predictably, Max manages to win Darcy back with his special telekinetic powers. First, he induces a case of nose-bleed on her stuck-up boyfriend, Barry (Mitch Kreindel of "Being There"), to force him to leave the restaurant. Later, he sabotages Barry's opera, making the lead dancer plunge off the stage at one point during his routine. Afterward, once Barry has taken Darcy home, Max steps in and takes Darcy to bed and gives her orgasm after orgasm before admitting that he isn't doing it. The major set-piece takes place as a Victorian beach house where Max and Darcy are invited by an old friend, Brian (Brian Doyle-Murray), who is a decorated Vietnam veteran confined to a wheelchair after an explosion crippled him following a sexual encounter with a Vietnamese woman. As it turns out, the enemy woman left a bomb under his bed after they had sex. Brian meets Max's ex-wife Lorraine (Mary Kay Place) one afternoon while Max is discussing his loss of Darcy with him. Lorraine falls head over heels in love with Brian after they meet at a gay bar where Brian is holding a publicity party for his bestselling self-help author, Mark Winslow (Dabney Coleman of "9 to 5"), who is so conceited that he thinks all women crave him. Coleman excels at being obnoxious and has a funny moment when he bares his butt to seduce Darcy. Darcy doesn't take the bait because she has refocused her sights on Max. At the beach house, Max goes nuts, turns luminous green, and behaves as if he were possessed. He dangles a white mouse in the air and then sniffs all of the white powder that superstitious Dorita (Nell Carter), a Haitian maid from Port Au Prince, has sprinkled around his bed to confine him to the mattress. This is probably the best scene after the opera scene. Darcy struggles to reassure Max on the roof of the beach house that she genuinely is concerned about him. Eventually, Dorita is stricken with the same powers. Abruptly, the film concludes as if Shapiro and co-scenarists Tom Sherohman and Arthur Sellers exhausted their creativity. Dabney Coleman adopts a phony accent that makes him sound funny, and Max subjects Mark's character to one humiliation after another during a dinner table scene. Chase delivers another low-key, laid-back performance where he relies on his deadpan behavior for maximum impact. The cast is charismatic, but the comedy is sporadic. "Modern Problems" boasts several goofy moments, but it isn't the tour-de-force that "The Groove Tube" was. Altogether, "Modern Problems" isn't Chase's best, but neither is it is worst.

bevkoonce-37-595793 My husband and I have loved this hilarious movie since it came out years ago! The people who gave a bad rating seemed so negative and up tight. There are so many funny scenes that are just priceless. Dabney Coleman is great. This has to be one of his classic roles. He has so many funny lines, what a character! His line "I'm a damn good looking man" is an all time favorite! Chevy is just great being Chevy. He always makes me laugh and has such a great dry sense of humor. Nell Carter as Dorita is just a charm with her voodoo. What a character! All the actors are so perfect and funny. I recommend this to everyone who likes a funny, quirky and great movie from our past! Enjoy it like we have all these years!

Todd Sundell It's funny how Brian Doyle-Murray's, Mary Kay Place's, and Dabney Coleman's characters all cease to exist in the final scenes of the movie. For crying out loud that's not that big of a house! Where'd they go? Did they get sucked up by the Twilight Zone and disappear? This contributes to the overall eerie and dark mood of the film that glorifies the cruel intentions of Max Fielding, the human toxic avenger! I'm assuming that they eventually got Mark the author down from the ceiling when they cleaned up the house. And Mary Kay Place and Brian Doyle-Murray hopefully recovered from the horrendous ruckus that Dorita (A Haitian woman with an ebonics accent) predicted before the dinner party began. But we don't know that because of Ken Shapiro's sloppy directing and writing as if he didn't give a crap about his characters. Not only that but when Max made Mark levitate during the whole dinner scene I was actually terrified! After all, if Shapiro is mean-spirited enough to cause an innocent ballet dancer's groin to explode, what is he going to do to the designated villain of the movie? What horrible thing is Max going to do to Mark? Something horrendous probably. Does Shapiro have an axe to grind and he's just taking it out on his characters? Strange. Strange. Strange! This movie left me with a bad feeling in my gut. Yuck!

TOMASBBloodhound Modern Problems is not remembered as being one of Chevy Chase's finest films, however there are some pretty funny moments in it. You just have to wait a while to find them. Chase plays an air traffic controller who just had his girlfriend walk out on him due to his overly-possessive nature. He spends the first 20 minutes or so moping around about the situation, then he is accidentally exposed to some toxic waste which gives him the ability to make things move. He sets out to use this power to win his girlfriend over and bring her back to him. The film really doesn't have many laughs that don't deal with his new powers, and the special f/x used to show them off are pretty pedestrian.There are however some pretty good laughs once Chase gets these amazing powers. In one scene he sees his girlfriend out on a date with a real jerk. Chase decides to end their date by making blood gush out of the man's nose. As someone who has had some serious nosebleeds, I kind of cringe during this scene, but yes it is kinda funny. In another scene, Chase uses his powers to give his girlfriend the best orgasm of her life while the two are reconciling at her place one evening. Chase is pretty funny as he uses facial expressions to mock the sounds coming out of the woman. By far the film's funniest moment comes when Chase disrupts a ballet by doing all sorts of things to the prissy lead male dancer. Not much in terms of Chevy's usually funny dialog is evident in the film, though. He just always seems to be in too lousy of a mood to be funny.The supporting performances are quite good. Dabney Coleman (as he often does) steals every scene he's in as an egotistical manic self-help author. He and Chase have some good go-arounds throughout the film. The two lead females do a fine job, as does Brian Doyle-Murray. Nell Carter provides some good laughs herself as she tries to use voodoo to subdue Chase. Her character is Haitian, and she believes he is some sort of demon.Overall, the film is somewhat funny. It is hurt by questionable writing, poor effects, and an all too abrupt conclusion. This is certainly a few rungs below Fletch or Caddyshack on the comedic ladder! 5 of 10 stars.The Hound.