After sitting through a rather painful 105 minutes of this seriously unfunny comedy we are still totally surprised that it’s star Jim Belushi didn’t have his own change of heart about being involved in such a disappointing movie. However what it is even more disturbing is that the movie which is produced by Emilio Estefan and features his wife Gloria who have both been recently been honored with MiFo (Miami’s Gay & Lesbian Film Fest) Ally Awards, takes a very dated stereotype view on the Miami’s LGBT community which positively reeks of homophobia.
Belushi plays Hank who had to retire from the Fire Service as he has a weak heart. He now very unhappily runs his own bug-spraying business in Florida and cares little about his house and his marriage which are both badly in need of some TLC. He has left it too late for the latter as Deena (Virginia Madsen) his wife is leaving him and moving out. Hank refuses to accept the fact that his youngest daughter Josie (Aimee Teegarden) is gay and has a girlfriend Teddy (Cody Horn), or the fact that his oldest daughter Laurie’s (Dawn Olivieri) new Cuban boyfriend/fiance Carlos William Levy is a genuine suitor. Cue a whole stream of homophobic and racist jokes.
Hank then has a heart attack on the same night a young gay Latino hairdresser dies, and everyone assumes that he is the donor of the new heart that Hank gets there and then. Now Hank cannot ‘get it up’ when he seduces the voluptuous Ruthie (Kathy Najimy) one night, but more significantly he finds himself getting his hair streaked and liking everything that is remotely ‘gay’. This former burly beer-swigging slob who was addicted to fried food now finds himself donning drag to wow the crowds by performing at the local gay club, and coming home to cook nouvelle cuisine.
Whilst he struggles (even more than we do) accepting his new persona, he is actually even more upset when the Hospital then tell him that he had in fact received the heart of a heterosexual Japanese sushi chef, and he is not ‘gay’ after all! That of course accounts for why now out of the blue he can make sushi.
The movie was filmed in 2014 and has been sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere since then, and to where it will no doubt return for good very quickly. The story plays stereotypes to the hilt trying to milk this rather sorry mess of such a contrived plot for any humor it can, and failing miserable. Being unfunny is no crime, it happens often in the cinema, but patronizing both the LGBT and the Latino communities in such a clumsy manner is nothing short of insulting.
