Moving

Richard Pryor’s final starring vehicle (and with good reason), Moving casts the erstwhile comedian as Arlo Pear – a transit engineer who bounces back from a crushing job loss with a fantastic new position in Idaho. Problems ensue as the process of packing up his family turns out to be fraught with delays and mishaps, as Arlo must contend with three incredibly sketchy movers, a driver (Dana Carvey) with multiple personalities, and a homeowner determined to take all the house’s fixtures with him. It’s a reasonable premise that’s employed to consistently and aggressively underwhelming effect by director Alan Metter and scripter Andy Breckman, as Moving boasts (or suffers from) an unreasonably over-the-top sensibility that grows more and more oppressive as time progresses – with the almost total lack of laughs ensuring that one’s patience for the film’s broad shenanigans grows thin right from the get-go. (There are, having said that, one or two chuckle-worthy moments, including Arlo flipping someone off with the wrong finger and most of Carvey’s turn as the unhinged driver.) Moving‘s shift from dull mediocrity to flat-out disaster comes in its final half hour, however, as Metter delivers a needlessly frenetic and thoroughly exhausting climactic stretch that borders on the unwatchable – which, it goes without saying, cements the film’s place as a rather epic bomb that’s been justifiably forgotten in the years since its 1988 release.

* out of ****