City Slickers Movie Review

If Hollywood had any "it" writers in the 1980s and early '90s, it was the duo of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who cranked out comedy after comedy, drawing on reasonably current events or topical themes while banking on the fact that giant stars would sign up to appear in the big-budget movies. No one seemed to care if the writing was good as long as Tom Hanks was talking to a mermaid (Splash) or Michael Keaton was trying to make his way through the Japanese auto industry (Gung Ho). A funny setup goes a long way.

Ganz and Mandel's most successful outing was arguably this one, and it's the highest-concept story of them all: City slickers go on "vacation" to work a real cattle drive, and of course they'' also find themselves along the way. In this case, Billy Crystal takes the reins (ho ho!) after coming off the huge success of When Harry Met Sally... He's a down-in the-dumps advertising executive named Mitch Robbins who is tasked by his equally dour wife to "find his smile." Naturally, herding cattle's the place to do it.





With one of the worst catchphrases in movie history (Crystal's obsequious "Helloo ooooooooo..." which shows up at least half a dozen times over the course of the film)