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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 81.67%
Worth A Look: 11.67%
Average: 0%
Pretty Bad: 0%
Total Crap: 6.67%
1 review, 54 user ratings
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| Windy City Heat |
by Erik Childress
"Forget About It Perry, It’s Chi-Town. Let’s Play Two!"
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Somewhere during the course of Windy City Heat, you expect Clarence Felder to pop-in and say “This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the Earth.” I don’t mean to cast aspersions on Perry Caravello (Lord knows he’s been through enough) but audiences do have to consider nominating him for “Dunce of the Year”. And why stop there? Put him in the cinema hall-of-fame or at least on the ballot alongside Jim Carrey & Jeff Daniels in Dumb & Dumber and Bill Pullman in Ruthless People because Perry is set-up to be the victim of an elaborate prank without anyone coming out to stop it. I can’t say that I believe for a second that the joke isn’t on us, but believe the gag or not, the result turns out to be both side-clutching funny and a knowing satire of Hollywood’s inside world.Leave it to the minds behind Comedy Central’s Crank Yankers to pull this off. What’s unbelievable is that they have reportedly been pulling pranks on poor Perry for many, many years. This time out, they’ve set him up to audition for a major Hollywood production. That is, if a screenplay about a Sports Private Eye on the case of retrieving the stolen memorabilia of famous Chicago athletes can be called major. After all, Perry’s biggest competition for the role is none other than MTV’s Carson Daly. One of the film’s slyest jokes is a wall full of X’d stars considered for the lead including Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford and Robert DeNiro. Perry is last on the list, but Carson is right in the middle.
After putting him through the audition process, Perry gets the role of Stone Fury (set to Michael Bolton’s Herculean anthem, “Go The Distance”) in what director Bobcat Goldthwait calls “One of the most exciting action films ever made…and it’s got drama in it.” His friends, Don Barris and stoner Tony “Mole” Barbieri have convinced him that he’s about to become a huge star and that their partnership (branded “The Big Three”) will become Hollywood’s next cause celebre. Anyone else would notice something’s amiss with producer John Quincy Adams and casting director Susan B. Anthony, but not Perry. (Fans will recognize Adams’ voice as sounding conspicuously like Yankers’ Miles Standish, played by one Tony Barbieri)
Why Windy City Heat works beyond the idea of a clothesline for individual Punk’d pranks is how every one of them is so cleverly constructed and taps into Perry’s own personal insecurities including homophobia and being lactose intolerant. Its knocks on rampaging star egos and backstage Hollywood shenanigans approach the inspiration of Spinal Tap. Some are Perry’s lines about why he can’t do porn and his “fetish” are so perfect that it’s hard to believe some genius comedy writer didn’t script them. But who cares, because like I said, it works either way just as well.Windy City Heat is going to pick up more and more fans as time goes on. It’s appeal will range from aficionados of Crank Yankers, reality show loathers, Hollywood satirists and just flat-out lovers of frantic comedy. It’s no joke that Goldthwait is now associated with two underappreciated comic gems (the first being his directorial debut, Shakes The Clown), although the cult status on this is likely to evolve sooner than later into a full-blown fan base. Maybe you’ll think you’ve been Blair Witch’d again or maybe Perry is the next Andy Kaufman in waiting. Whatever reasoning you believe is justified, it’s liable to be drowned out by that sound you hear when laughing your ass off.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=9610&reviewer=198
originally posted: 06/09/04 11:39:27
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 CineVegas Film Festival. For more in the 2004 CineVegas Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
N/A (R)
DVD: 26-Sep-2006
UK
N/A
Australia
N/A
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