Back to School - where learning is optional

Back to school is another of those 80s movies premises that is a bit hard to believe but still delivers plenty of laughs. Rodney Dangerfield, owner of successful Tall and Fat stores across the county, goes to college with his son after buying his way in with a healthy donation for the business school which now shares his name. His son rooms with Robert Downey, Jr., and is not a great success (towel boy for the diving team, unable to talk to the girl he likes). Dangerfield, between oneliners, doesn’t take class seriously and instead hires people to do his work for him. He falls for his poetry teacher, is accused of cheating and has to pass oral exams to pass his classes or face expulsion. After a great 80s montage of cramming for the exams, he surprising passes in time to get to the big diving meet. At well over 60 years old, Dangerfield fills in for one of the divers, a jerk who fakes a toe cramp rather than face the pressure, and performs the deadly Triple Lindy to win the meet for the school. Everyone wins!

This movie is supremely silly. The mascot for the university is the Hooters. The dean is Dean Martin.  The plot is a loose construction for classic Dangerfield zingers. (“They want me to take oral exams for all my classes or they’ll kick me out. And if I take them, who knows where they’ll kick me.”) But who cares? It’s funny, and when the guy playing his son is off screen, the acting is decent enough.

And it’s not all stupid jokes. As I said, Melon (Dangerfield) hires professionals to do his schoolwork and even snags Kurt Vonnegut to write a paper about the works of Vonnegut. Melon gets an F on the paper, partly because it’s clear he didn’t write it and partly because “whoever wrote this doesn’t know the first thing about Vonnegut.” Melon promptly calls Vonnegut and tells him he’s stopping payment on his check and then hurls a very choice four-letter word at him. Beyond being a nice set up and pay off, it’s an intelligent critique of modern criticism, somewhat out of place in a movie like this, but appreciated nonetheless.

In my review of Weird Science, I failed to adequately acknowledge the work of Robert Downey, Jr., and here again he performs amazing work in a supporting role, playing the goofy, blue-haired roommate for Melon Jr. Here he heckles divers, throws paint on football players at a pep rally, and writhes on the ground begging Melon Jr to “do me, do me, do me!” He steals many of the scenes in this movie and totally commits to the craziness he’s asked to do in, both here and in Weird Science. Kudos, 80s Robert Downey, Jr.!

This is funny movie with funny lines tied around a hard-to-believe yet successful story. You’ll find something to laugh at here.

Back to School: 4 of Patrick Swayze’s 6 abs.