This is a decent enough comedic drama, the whole fish-outta-water thing putting a couple of innocent dudes in prison and their reactions to that. Good comedic pair-up of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in that era of social and interracial commentary by director Poitier. This is the second of Pryor and Wilder team-ups of four films altogether for nice light-tension dramas with their comedic antics layered over.
Starts off showing why New York has been a real gem of a shitty even 50 years or so ago. Struggling playwrite Skip (Wilder) and his struggling actor good buddy Harry (Pryor) both get fired from their day jobs on the same day so Skip says fuckit, let’s blow this town, head to the West Coast. They almost make it before the van breaks down somewhere in the Southwest. Pick up an odd job to help pay the mechanic bill, but circumstances beyond their control involving a bank robbery falsely lands them in prison, and it’s obvious they really don’t belong there. Warden don’t seem to care much though. Mild Chucklings at their antics follows.
This ain’t no Dirty Harry, and the Warden subplot is a little extra cringe on top of the rather suspect Prison Sentence that lands Harry and Skip in the clink for 125 years. It’s toned-down Pryor and amped-up Wilder that does make it what it is, and a few okay secondary characters and the love interest JoBeth Williams to complete the arc. Mildly amusing, I wasn’t really expecting much more after seein it, well, a pretty long time ago. Wilder trying to act all bad-ass is as cringe as you think it would be, he’s definitely nutty here, with Pryor just trying to stay alive through it all.
