Opportunity Knocks

Directed by Donald Petrie, Opportunity Knocks follows Dana Carvey’s Eddie Farrell as he cons his way into the lives of a wealthy businessman (Robert Loggia’s Milt Malkin) and his family – with complications ensuing after Eddie finds himself genuinely falling for Milt’s daughter (Julia Campbell’s Annie Malkin). It’s a fairly standard premise that’s employed to mostly watchable yet entirely forgettable effect by Petrie, as the filmmaker, armed with a screenplay by Mitchel Katlin and Nat Bernstein, delivers a terminally erratic endeavor that benefits substantially from Carvey’s personable, agreeable turn as the central character – with the actor’s strong work here elevating the proceedings on a regular basis and ensuring that the whole thing never becomes quite as tedious as one might’ve anticipated. And although Petrie has admittedly suffused the narrative with a small handful of compelling sequences, including (and especially) an engaging interlude wherein Eddie sells Milt and others on the idea of bathroom-stall advertisements, Opportunity Knocks eventually progresses into a needlessly sentimental (and palpably padded-out) third act that ensures it concludes on a fairly underwhelming note – with the end result an almost passable comedy that would hardly be worth mentioning if it weren’t for Carvey’s mere presence.

** out of ****