In the Darwinian dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood every day is a struggle not only to reach the top, but also to keep this lofty position once acquired. However, there are few individuals that have reached such a godlike status and reputation of infallibility which allows them to make colossal errors the mere mortals couldn't afford. When disasters occur, those people can always claim that they had in mind something other than commercial hit or ambitious work of art. One of such individuals is George Lucas, whose ambitious attempt to pay homage to the cultural influences of his youth resulted in Radioland Murders, 1994 comedy directed by Mel Smith.
The plot of the film is set in Chicago 1939, when WBN, 4th major radio-network in USA, makes its nation-wide debut. The big opening results in absolute chaos, yet the station manager Penny Henderson (played by Mary Stuart Masterson) would soon discover that the tyrannical boss, heartless sponsors, capricious actors, underpaid writers at the edge of armed revolt and her soon-to-be-ex-husband Roger Henderson (played by Brian Benben) aren't the worst of her problems. During the night a mysterious voice gets on the air and makes threats, and soon various people there are getting killed. Roger becomes major suspect and he is forced to find the real killer and save his own marriage in the process.
At first sight, Radioland Murders might be seen as nothing more than a vanity project - Lucas' attempt to flash his financial and technical might, especially by employing expensive (and at the time experimental) CGI effects in a period piece that could have worked nicely without them. However, Lucas, who was producer and author of screen story, deliberately set the plot in 1939 and based it around radio-station in order to recreate and pay homage to the radio-stations that used to be the main source of entertainment for Americans before the advent of television. Woody Allen did the same thing few years earlier in his nostalgic comedy Radio Days, but for Lucas radio broadcasts of 1930s and 1940s had additional value "pulpish" adventure and science fiction plays that turned into precious source of inspiration for Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
Unfortunately, Lucas chose the wrong genre for that, trying to pay homage both to radio culture and slapstick comedies in 1930s. The result is often very messy, since his screenwriting team lacks the talent to mimic slapstick classics of the time. Instead, they flood the audience with ridiculous number of gags, with only a fraction of them being funny. However, good acting and occasional laugh are reasons enough to judge Radioland Murders as an entertainment, and not only a vanity project.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on August 5th 2002)
==
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc
Brave browser: https://brave.com/dra011
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/22588-radioland-murders?language=en-US
Critic: AA
