The Out-of-Towners

Directed by Sam Weisman, The Out-of-Towners follows suburban couple Henry (Steve Martin) and Nancy (Goldie Hawn) as their efforts to travel to New York City for a job interview are continually stymied by a wide variety of outside forces. Filmmaker Weisman, armed with Marc Lawrence’s screenplay, delivers an erratic yet mostly watchable comedy that receives plenty of mileage out of its stars’ predictably first-class efforts, as both Martin and Hawn turn in charming, affable work that goes a long way towards smoothing over the narrative’s various bumps and lulls. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that Weisman has elicited equally engaging performances from such first-class periphery players as John Cleese and Mark McKinney.) And although the picture admittedly does progress into a midsection that’s about as uneven as one could envision, The Out-of-Towners‘ overall impact is heightened by the palpable chemistry between Martin and Hawn’s respective characters and the ongoing inclusion of laugh-out-loud funny jokes and episodes. (It’s impossible, for example, not to get a kick out of the stretch in which Henry gets high off an “aspirin” given to him by a prisoner.) By the time the satisfying finale rolls around, The Out-of-Towners has cemented its place as a decent-enough endeavor that, although consistently entertaining, never quite becomes the classic that one might’ve anticipated.

**1/2 out of ****