The Crushed Film Festival presents: Kuffs
by Sarah D. Bunting
The Movie: Kuffs
The Crush Object(s): Christian Slater; Tony Goldwyn
The Story: Charming commitphobe George Kuffs (Slater) is forced to grow up in a hurry when gangsters kill his brother Brad (Bruce Boxleitner) and try to take over Brad’s San Francisco patrol-special district. (No, rereading that sentence won’t help your comprehension; don’t bother.) George must avenge Brad’s death with the help of a reluctant Ted (Goldwyn).
I’ve made the film sound relatively coherent; it isn’t. Slater is, I think we can all agree, limited, but he isn’t the problem here — apparently, this script was written with him in mind for the title role, and the things he does do well (sleazy charm, bantamweight bad-assery) are what’s called for, so he’s fine.
The script, not so much. Bruce A. Evans wrote Starman and adapted Stand By Me…but also wrote Cutthroat Island and Jungle 2 Jungle, and he’s working a lot closer to the latter two in Kuffs than to the former. The plot is fairly simple (read: “hackneyed”), but tonally, the script whiplashes from “somber vengeance drama” to “wacky thriller” to “slapstick comedy,” often within the same scene.
But because it’s all over the place, a few good bits just kind of…happen, apparently accidentally, that lend the proceedings a certain charm. The bulk of it is bad — Slater’s very obvious stunt double, who in an added bit of misfortune looks like Robert Blake; Harold Faltermeyer’s score, which is not only reminiscent of the not-that-great-to-begin-with “Axel F’s Theme” but outright lifts bars of it; Milla Jovovich, even more wooden than usual as George’s pregnant girlfriend; Slater attempting to administer a believable beating to Goldwyn, who has eight inches on him at the least — but just when you get fed up with George’s direct-address-to-camera thing, he does it with duct tape over his mouth, and it’s subtitled. And Goldwyn’s character has frequent physical spasms of frustration that play more amusingly than most of the movie’s intentional comedy.
The Backstory: I didn’t see this because it had Slater in it; I saw it because, if I recall correctly, Mr. Stupidhead and I showed up at the theater in search of air conditioning first and foremost, and bought tickets to whatever started soonest. But I did have a post-Heathers crush on Slater, so I was fine with it.
Surprisingly, though, midway through the movie, the crush object changed for me — to Tony Goldwyn. Love that guy! I tend to get crushes on actors who aren’t leading men, which is problematic in that it’s hard to moon over guys who don’t work as much or get as much screentime, and Goldwyn is a perfect example of that. My crush on him began with Kuffs (he’s in unifoooooorm…just sayiiiiiiing) and continues to this day, even when he played serial-killer twins on Without a Trace.
The Embarrassment Level: Kuffs is boring, badly paced, and dated in the extreme. Having considered Christian Slater fuckable at any point is…um, also boring, badly paced, and dated in the extreme, actually, now that I think about it, but at least I had the wisdom to transfer my crush to Goldwyn. Slater’s a 6, the movie’s a 7, and Goldwyn’s a 1, which averages out to roughly a 4. Yeah, that’s about right.
Tags: Bruce Boxleitner Christian Slater Harold Faltermeyer Milla Jovovich movies Mr. Stupidhead Robert Blake The Crushed Film Festival Tony Goldwyn
I love Tony Goldwyn too! Even in Ghost when he’s the bad guy he’s hot.
He was so good in Without A Trace. And he’s getting better looking as he’s getting older. For a guy who plays bad guys so well, he’s very likable. I approve. (Christian Slater, not so much – never did anything for me)
I sat in on my roommate’s film class once in college. The lecturer made a comment about how you don’t usually break the fourth wall……except maybe Kuffs. We got a kick out of a Kuffs dig in a lecture preceding Fellini’s 8 1/2. (Of course this was probably within a year of Kuffs’ theatrical run, and we’d had a free sneak preview of that film on campus.)
OH WOW. I haven’t thought about his movie in YEARS. I rented this movie SO many times! Ugh, thank GOD when they started pricing videos to own so the guys at the video store couldn’t laugh at me anymore. To my face, at least.
Man, the days when Christian Slater was THE guy to crush on… dark times, indeed. Heh.
Goldwin over Slater any day, although I do have a certain affection for Slater. Goldwin still freaks me out a little in the Without a Trace role(s).
Oooh, he was also Vincent D’Onofrio’s drug addicted, and now dead, brother on Law & Order: CI.
Tony Goldwyn was also great as a serial killer in an episode of “Dexter.” I watched his scenes over again since they were so good. He does handsome/creepy so well.
Ha! We screened this in college when it first came out. We spent the 30 minutes before the movie out in the student center trying to hand out free passes and still couldn’t get people to come in. We ended up with ourselves (we were the 2 ushers, ticket seller, and the projectionist) and 2 other people in the theater. We all sat on the front row and MST3K’d the whole thing. It was awesome. I still love to watch it if it ever comes on TV.
I had a left from childhood crush on Bruce Boxleitner (so ashamed!) so that’s why I wanted to see it. He has a great death I might add. So cheesy! I agree that Tony is awesome in the film.
You know, I don’t expect to read anything more perfect than “bantamweight badassery” all day today. Nice.
Oooh, Tony Goldwyn is gorgeous. He also directed “A Walk on the Moon” which featured Viggo Mortensen’s naked ass and Liev Schrieber…just being hot actually.
So, not only dreamy and a good actor but a wonderful director. So crush-worthy.
Um, *mumbles* I kind of found Christian Slater hot in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”. Pleasedon’tjudgeme.
“Having considered Christian Slater fuckable at any point is…um, also boring, badly paced, and dated in the extreme”
Oh, post Robin Hood: Prince of Hams till about the present day, I agree, but boyfriend was all kinds of hot again this past fall in My Own Worst Enemy, even if the show failed miserably.
OH SWEET EVER LOVING LORD. I was madly in love with Christian Slater from age 12 until roughly 17. I saw “Kuffs” in the theater, and I have to admit, even then I knew it was crap, but hey, it was HIM. I saw “Prince of Thieves” at least 2x, and owned the VHS (but never the DVD, okay!). Later on, when they came on TV, I saw “Pump Up the Volume” (glad I didn’t pay money for that one), “Heathers” (still kind of a favorite), “Gleaming the Cube,” (um. got nothing.), and “Mobsters” (call me crazy, but I doubt they sat around talking about how important friendship was, seriously).
I saw him in person 2x – the first time while he was filming scenes from “Bed of Roses” on my block (one day, the film crew kept my younger sister from getting home and she yelled at them). Seriously, it was just him and me on the street that day – the high school fans weren’t out yet, and I was on my way to work. I pretended not to notice until I got around the corner and then collapsed against a wall.
The second time was at a movie theater in Chelsea. The movie was “Rush Hour,” and he sat several rows ahead of me and my friends with two brunettes who appeared to be twins. I deliberately didn’t say anything to my friends because I knew they’d make a huge fuss and by then he was off my radar.
A: He has a bald spot. He had one then, and it was years ago. He’s hiding it well.
B: He’s really, really short. He was probably about my height, and I’m 5’7″.
C: He really does laugh like that.
After we were a block away from the theater, I told my friends he’d been in there, and they started screaming. I figured it was safe.
It wasn’t. He was right behind us, with his two smirking brunettes. He was cool, they weren’t. I was too embarrassed to look at him. (For the record, today I’d be all, “You got something to say, BEYOTCHES?”)
So now, years later, I agree with Ferretrick: He was hot again in “My Own Worst Enemy.” Good for him. And good for his bald spot. :)
Oh wow. I remember a friend and I went to this, and we were the only ones in the theater. That was fine with us; I lusted over Slater’s shirtless scene(s?) the whole time. To the point my friend was pretty disgusted with me, heh.
Man, this was bad. Even then, when I wanted so desperately to love it because I loved Slater (started crushing on him in Prince of Thieves), I still realized it was a horrible movie. Years later it was on TV and I tried to sit through it out of a sense of nostalgia. I couldn’t.
My Crushed Film Festival movie was “If Looks Could Kill”, with Richard Grieco. Loved, loved that movie. And I am so ashamed to admit that.
Oh, the duct tape! I forgot about that! Love! Man, I need to watch this again. I bought it on DVD for my sister (would it be extra wrong to get an extra copy for me?), so it’s definitely around somewhere… Back in the day, I loved it for Christian Slater, but now I think I’d also watch it for Milla Jovovich. Shut up. She’s adorable.
To this day, I cannot think about someone ordering flowers without also thinking “Kisses on all your pink parts!” which is embarassing, to say the least.
I don’t suppose anyone will be covering Mystery Date for The Crushed Film Festival? Ethan Hawke? Fisher Stevens? B.D. Wong as the bad guy, the leader of some sort of generic-Asian crime ring?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102500/
I looooooved it around the same time I loooooooved Kuffs.
This movie, oy. I taped it off the TV at one point & watched it constantly. As I recall, the period I considered Slater droolworthy was from Legend of Billie Jean (notwithstanding the blond thing) to Pump Up the Volume, til Robin Hood ended it. Killed it dead, actually, with no hope of resurrection.
Tony Goldwyn, though…I just saw him again recently as Neil Armstrong in From the Earth to the Moon, which HBO Canada is currently re-airing. He’s kind of flat as Armstrong (which may be just Armstrong), but was great in Dexter. He definitely does a good creepy character.
I must hasten to add that that Milla Jovovich’s adorableness is not enough to make me watch Return to the Blue Lagoon. More than once. (I was, like, twelve. And it just happened to be on. It’s not like I watched it on purpose or anything.)
Tulip, do NOT be ashamed of your Bruce Boxliking. Ooo! B.D. Wong! And RUSSELL Wong! And Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa! And (what the hell) Al Leong!
Apparently, I LURVE terrible movies. So much happiness and air conditioning!
Please do “If Looks Could Kill.” Such a good bad movie…spent about a summer with that movie living in the VCR. I mean, Roger Daltrey, Super Spy? The French Teacher? Linda Hunt and that little whip? Please, you just gotta!!!
“Having considered Christian Slater fuckable at any point is…um, also boring, badly paced, and dated in the extreme”…but a crush on him also got me through a really bad patch in the mid-nineties, when I went into a major depression after the death of my beloved German shepherd. I find his stuff kind of cringeworthy now, but I’ll always have a soft spot for him for helping me survive through a really dark time.
Kuffs was never my favorite, but it was the one where I noticed that in any movie he gets knocked around in, he ends up with one shoulder all bloodied, for some reason.
I also saw this because Bruce Boxleitner was in it…for about five minutes. Then you’re kind of stuck with the rest of the movie.
For some bizarre reason, the only things I remember about this movie are
1) The beginning where they wackily danced to “My Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”.
2) That the copy I watched of it (it was from Rogers and on VHS) had carhorns poorly soundedited over some of the swearing.
So, so horrible.
“If Looks Could Kill”…. oh my god, this subject line is bringing back waves of SHAME. LOL
I saw that one in the theater too. My friend wanted to see “Mr. and Mrs. Bridges” but I dragged her to see “If Looks Could Kill” (clearly an unforgiveable offense).
Richard Grieco could never have passed for a teenager, so that was poor casting to begin with. I vaguely remember Gabrielle Anwar, Linda Hunt, a football jacket, a desperate attempt to open a can (?!) of condoms, and so forth. The rest is just a sad, sad blur.
Didn’t Goldwyn also play a serial killer in *SPOILER* Kiss the Girls?
I’m just saying, there seems to be a theme happening.
My sister and I looked forward to this movie because of Bruce Boxleitner and couldn’t BELIEVE he was killed off in the first five minutes! We waited a half hour to see if it was a faking-his-death deal or something!
Please say someone will do Gleaming the Cube, not for the Slater but for the Perlich? Please!!!! I know he had hardly any screen time, and I can not give you a good reason, but swoon. I can’t be the only one? Right, right?
I honestly thought I was the only person the world who had ever seen this movie.
As bad as this movie is, its got such funny parts that I can stand watching it. Tried to get a friend to watch it, and she was all “well Christian is sort of hot”
But when he opens the door and the guy is there and he points the gun at him and he makes a noise like “pfssfdfdfdt” and keels over, I still laugh.
and the duct tape.
Christian Slater was my big, big teen crush. I must have seen this film fifty times (no exaggeration – having a VHS player in my bedroom was a bad, baaaad thing) between the ages of 12-16 then managed to forget all about it. Then last year or so, my boyfriend (who thinks my one time Slater crush is hilarious) decided we should watch it again. Another bad, baaaaaad thing.
The only Slater films that are still watchable are Heathers and True Romance. The rest are bilge.
Whenever I have to write stories about him for my celebrity-gossip-writing day job, I want to kick the 13 year old inside me for her poor judgement. All my friends liked still-hot Brad Pitt or still-even-hotter Johnny Depp. I was a fool.
:)
OH RIGHT. I was like…I know I’ve seen crappy movies because of cute actors, why can’t I think of one?
So…right. Kuffs. And Pump Up The Volume. Prince of Theives. Then Pump Up The Volume ten more times. Can you please review that by the way? I HAD A PUMP UP THE VOLUME POSTER. ON MY WALL. Next to the Axl Rose one. And the C & C Music Factory one. The horror.
I have the most embarassing admission of all. I watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves to see….Kevin Costner! Kill me.
Fortunately, my lobotomy has since been reversed…..
Tony Goldwyn= definitely hot! Sometimes creepily hot, but hot nonetheless…
@girlon: And then at the end of it, Goldwyn screams “FUCK” anyway. Ha…ha?
Yoicks. The only thing I ever saw in which Christian Slater was not repugnant was “Heathers”. Just never did anything for me in anything else. Goldwyn, OTOH, is sort of the Big Lots version of James Spader, in terms of oily charm. Or he was, anyway.
I distinctly remember watching a rental of this when I was 10 or 11 with my brother, I have no idea why we rented it or why our parents let us rent it (considering the violence and the swearing and whatnot.) I do remember thinking it was funny as hell and that Christian Slater was awfully puny.
@ Sarah: I know! It made me sad that that was their big joke. :(
However, you’ve got to at least give Slater credit in that he looked hotter in this than he did in Name of the Rose. That haircut made him look like The Missing Stooge.
Tony Goldwyn….I even watched the MFTV movie “The Boys Next Door”, which included Robert Sean Leonard and Nathan Lane playing developmentally disabled people, because of his hotness. Taped and watched it several times, I’m embarassed to say. And I’m now starting to wonder if it’s on DVD to rent…it’s a sickness, really.
@Elyse: The same thought has been running though my head. I could think of the crush by proxy but not my own and I know I have seen bad movies because of a crush. But for the life of me I could not think of the bad movie. Until today and Kuffs. I must have blocked it out until now. I wish I could block it out again.
This is a great film festival. I can’t wait to see what’s next!
Katie, there’s a movie with Tony Goldwyn and Robert Sean Leonard both in it?
There are so many wonderful possibilities that people have mentioned. I am going to have to track these down!
I can’t tell you how many times I saw Gleaming the Cube because of my little sister’s crush on Slater. She can’t even blame it on the era, because she was born in 1990, and by the time she decided to crush on Slater he was pretty middle aged for a 12 year old’s affections. Needless to say I gave her lots of grief. (While neglecting to tell her how I’d loved him myself during the Heathers era!)
I will throw my vote in for “If Looks Could Kill” as one of the best of all bad movies. By any serious aesthetic standards, it’s indefensible; but it’s an awful lot of fun. Richard Grieco blithely acting as if he could ever pass for high-school-age (and also obligingly disrobing once). Robin Bartlett as The French Teacher. Roger Daltry as the real superspy. And a high-class pair of supervillains in Linda Hunt and Roger Rees. Superspy gadgets like sneakers that walk up walls. I mean, what’s not to love?
If we’re making suggestions for bad films to review, I’m going to throw in Brotherhood of Justice, an obscure (made for TV?) film, starring young Keifer Sutherland, Keanu Reeves, and Billy Zane. Based on a true story, the movie’s set in a small Texas town whose high school has a drug problem. When Keanu Reeves finds out that his younger brother is smoking dope, he decides to take on the drug dealers. But soon his teen anti-drug group turns into a vigilante gang (with Billy Zane as one of the members), and Keifer Sutherland becomes a victim of their violence (even though he’s a good guy, and not a drug dealer). It’s truly terrible. I believe Joe Spano plays the high school principal.
“‘If Looks Could Kill’, somebody get Grieco a mirror.”
–Dennis Miller
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves came out in summer 1991 when I’d just gotten out of fifth grade, and my crush on Christian Slater started BECAUSE of that movie. (I know, I know – even at a fresh 11, I recognized Kevin Costner’s complete suckitude, but I thought Christian Slater was cute and I wasn’t old enough to have seen Pump Up the Volume or Heathers yet.) I think I also associate it with growing up – that was my first pictures-from-magazines-on-the-bedroom-wall crush, I’d just started getting my parents to drop me off at the movies, (my childhood best friend and I saw Prince of Thieves together and felt all grown and shit), and I, um, Became a Woman that summer, so there’s a lot wrapped up there.
I wasn’t allowed to see Kuffs when it was in the theater but it was sleepover fodder when it came out on VHS – my childhood best friend had a crush on him too, as did her older sister (we got her older sister to rent us R-rated movies). And I think we thought it was hilarious. Like, I don’t think we thought it was supposed to be anything other than a comedy.
The big Christian Slater taped-off-the-tv swoon movie for me was Untamed Heart. “OMG he loves Marisa Tomei so much and then he diiiiiiies! He loved her so much his poor widdle heart couldn’t take it!” Bleargh. Our VCR started to go and it ate my tape, and I was INCENSED. So weird, because as an adult I’m not into romances/romantic comedies at all – Taxi Driver and The Silence of the Lambs are two of my favorite movies. If I watched Untamed Heart now I’d probably laugh at Rosie Perez and have little use for the rest.
Oh I had forgotteen Untamed Heart! Oh how my beat friend and I cried at the theater! I think it was my first honest-to-God tearjerker.
I cried at “Dying Young.” “DYING YOUNG,” for God’s sack!
Hey, Bunting, what are you implying about Dying Young? You’re not suggesting, ARE YOU, that I ought not to have risked dehydration and/or mucosal suffocation while watching that particular piece of cinematic… uh, art? Ahem.
ACK “Untamed Heart”!! A friend of mine made me watch that. No wonder we’re not friends anymore! (LOL)
Ah, “Dying Young”… My Campbell Scott love was mighty in those days. It really came to fruitation with “The Love Letter”, though – it was so “Somewhere in Time” wonderful & cheesetastic… *sigh*