Odd Jobs

Directed by Mark Story, Odd Jobs follows five college buddies, including Paul Reiser’s Max, Paul Provenza’s Byron, and Robert Townsend’s Dwight, as their efforts at starting a moving company are continually stymied by violent mobsters. It’s a workable premise that’s predominantly employed to tiresome and often disastrously unfunny effect by Story, as the filmmaker delivers a slipshod, episodic endeavor that’s been littered with seriously questionable instances of comedy. (There is, for example, a recurring (and deeply racist) bit involving Byron’s efforts at blending in with a black family.) And while Story does elicit agreeable work from some of his performers, with this particularly true of Reiser’s predictably winning and charismatic work as the earnest Max, Odd Jobs’ lack of forward momentum paves the way for an ineffective and rather endless second half that culminated with a truly tiresome action-oriented climax – with the final result a periodically watchable yet utterly forgettable misfire that’s earned its place as a thoroughly obscure relic of the 1980s. (And this is to say nothing of the movie’s woefully misguided final joke involving a dead dog.)

*1/2 out of ****