X
- 1981
- R
- Columbia Pictures
- 1 h 34 m
- 1981
- R
- Columbia Pictures
- 1 h 34 m
Summary A quiet man's peaceful suburban lifestyle is threatened by the new, obnoxious couple that moves in next door.
Directed By: John G. Avildsen
Written By: Thomas Berger, Larry Gelbart
- 1981
- R
- Columbia Pictures
- 1 h 34 m
- 1981
- R
- Columbia Pictures
- 1 h 34 m
Neighbors
47
7.0
Summary A quiet man's peaceful suburban lifestyle is threatened by the new, obnoxious couple that moves in next door.
Directed By: John G. Avildsen
Written By: Thomas Berger, Larry Gelbart
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 8 Critic Reviews
47
13% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
63% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
25% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 8 Critic Reviews
47
13% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
63% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
25% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
The first hour of Neighbors is probably more fun than the second, if only because the plot developments come as a series of surprises. After a while, the bizarre logic of the movie becomes more predictable. But Neighbors is a truly interesting comedy, an offbeat experiment in hallucinatory black humor. It grows on you.
Other than a few laughs the reason for the film is a little puzzling. Ultimately it is Belushi and Aykroyd that make the picture work. When they hit the comedic mark, as they more often than not do here, nothing else seems to matter.
Once in the proper mood for Neighbors, however, the disappointing discovery is that there isn't a lot of movie there. Neighbors is by no means a laughless debacle like "Buddy Buddy," and as an ambiguous paranoid rattle around life's great cage, the film is funnier and less pretentious than "Being There." It's just too bad that it tends to send you home empty-headed.[24 Dec 1981, p.C1]
The situation that Neighbors starts off with is funnier than anything that grows out of it, at least the version of the tale by Mr. Avildsen's and Larry Gelbart, the screenwriter. While Mr. Berger's novel has an aspect of the mysterious to keep it going, the film is solely devoted to hijinks, and the hijinks have nowhere to go.
In fact, ruthlessly ironing out Berger's subtleties of tone in favour of a rumbustious Animal House collision between Belushi and Aykroyd, it becomes increasingly tiresome, with few funny moments to leaven the proceedings.
In concert with composer Bill Conti and scriptwriter Larry Gelbart,
Neighbors has become a hyper insult festival in which four people
pointlessly humiliate each other in a variety of increasingly vicious
ways. Sample dialogue: "Leave that warthead alone. C'mon, we've got
cesspools to suck." It's enough to make you nostalgic for the Shavian wit
of The Gong Show, for the genteel grace of Saturday afternoon wrestling. [19 Dec 1981]
The ads for Neighbors call it "a comic nightmare"; it's more like a sour case of creative indigestion. [21 Dec 1981, p.51]
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 4 User Ratings
7.0
50% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
25% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
25% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 4 User Ratings
7.0
50% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
25% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
25% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.
Production Company
Columbia Pictures
Release Date Dec 18, 1981
Duration 1 h 34 m
Rating R
Genres
Tagline In a not-too-distant suburb, on a very quiet street . . . Earl Keese, a man who leads a routine suburban life, sits calmly waiting for his dinner. Little does he know - This may be his last home-cooked meal . . . For somewhere in time and space exists a world, a comic nightmare world, where anything can happen. A world that this reserved, hardworking homeowner is about to enter. In the next 24 hours he will experience things that he has never experienced before and leave behind things he will never experience again and somehow his life will never be the same. For Earl Keese is about to meet . . . The Neighbors.
Awards
The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards
• 2 Nominations
