The Toy
Dir: Richard Donner
1982
***
Richard Donner's remake of Francis Veber's 1976 Le Jouet has very little of the charm or intelligence of the original. The slight changes in story really don't work and there is a rather awkward racial angle to the story that, intentional or not, really doesn't do the production any favours. How the idea of a little boy who wants nothing more than the love of his father turns into an awkward and misguided comment on slavery is anyones guess but it doesn't work and is a little bit insulting to all involved. The story tried to suggest that people can't be bought but fails miserably when the lead character and others are indeed bought, contradicting every aspect of the notion. The conclusion is flat and the film celebrates a job well done when in fact the problems at the beginning of the film still exist at the end. Relationships are terribly unconvincing and all the important aspects of the story are either swept under the carpet or skipped over at break-neck speed. There is a sweat, if not a little odd sort of innocents about the film but it is still rather troubling during certain scenes. They tried way too hard to add intelligence into what should have been just a silly comedy. I liked the film purely for the comedy performances from Richard Pryor, Jackie Gleason, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Ned Beatty and Teresa Ganzel and as much as I loathed the young Scott Schwartz (who bizarrely went on to make porn films) he couldn't spoil the class of comedy that these actors delivered. Richard Donner is a great director and one of my favorites but with the Toy he proved that as long as you have a brilliant cast, you can often film any old rubbish and it will work out just fine.