Delirious

Directed by Tom Mankiewicz, Delirious follows a soap-opera writer (John Candy’s Jack Gable) as he finds himself trapped within his own creation after a car crash. It’s a promising setup that’s employed to sometimes watchable yet mostly underwhelming effect by Mankiewicz, as the filmmaker, armed with Lawrence J. Cohen and Fred Freeman’s screenplay, delivers a sluggish comedy that fares best within its fun, affable opening stretch – with the agreeable atmosphere perpetuated by a typically charismatic turn by Candy. (It’s clear, too, that the picture benefits from the entertaining efforts of its various periphery players, including Jerry Orbach, Charles Rocket, and Dylan Baker.) There’s little doubt, then, that Delirious begins its slow-but-steady descent into irrelevance once it segues into its increasingly tiresome midsection, as the ongoing emphasis on the soap-opera exploits of the larger-than-life characters becomes more and more tedious (and grating) as time progresses (ie very little of this is as fun as Mankiewicz has obviously intended). And while the movie does include a handful of amusing digressions, with this especially true of everything involving Baker’s hapless figure, Delirious primarily comes off as a disappointing misfire that almost (but not quite) squeaks by thanks to Candy’s irresistible presence.

** out of ****