Men at Work

Emilio Estevez is best known as Charlie Sheen’s brother, despite being good actor in his own right and an accomplished film director. He never hesitated to invest those talents in joint projects with his sibling and one of their most interesting pairings is Men At Work, 1990 comedy which Estevez wrote and directed.

Estevez and Sheen in the film appear as two protagonists – James St. James and Carl Taylor, two young men in Southern Californian beach town of Las Playas who are best friends and dream of starting their own surf shop. This, however, requires money and James and Carl are forced to make it by working as town’s garbage collectors. They try to make the best of it and treat their work as fun, much to the displeasure of their superiors that assign Louis (played by Keith David), man who will accompany them and observe their work. In the meantime, Jack Berger (played by Darrell Larson), corrupt city councilman has developed a conscience and decided to end his shady dealings with Maxwell Potterdam III (played by John Getz), rich businessman who had been secretly dumping toxic waste in nearby areas. In order to protect himself, Berger has made secret tape incriminating Potterdam, thus becoming target for Potterdam’s assassins. When James and Carl accidentally discover Berger’s body, they are afraid that they might be accused of crime. So, they, together with Louis, who reveals himself as disturbed Vietnam War veteran, decide to hide body and try to find something about murder before they decide what to do. The best clue happens to be Susan Wilkins (played by Leslie Hope), Berger’s campaign manager who unknowingly holds the tape and who also happens to live in building next to Carl’s. Carl, who had been previously spying on her, goes to her apartment to collect information, unaware that she also became target thus bringing his and James’ life in danger.

Estevez’s script doesn’t show much creativity. Based on the idea of the film that would have garbage collectors as protagonists, Men At Work almost discards that “high concept” idea, reducing it to few visual jokes at the beginning. Estevez instead opts for broader farce with more generic plot, although, to his credit, he delivers few interesting scenes that show influence by Hitchcock and Kubrick, as well as inspiration from John Badham’s comic thriller Stakeout in which Estevez appeared few years earlier. The brothers, unsurprisingly, have good “buddy buddy” dynamic, which works best in the first part of the film, when their characters are established. Keith David adds a lot to this dynamic by powerful performance of a man who starts as protagonists’ bureaucratic hindrance only to transform into Rambo-like maniac. The rest of cast is solid, with exception of John Getz who goes over the top as villain or Leslie Hope who doesn’t have enough chemistry with obligatory romantic subplot involving Sheen’s character. Quality of humour is good enough, although some of the jokes might be a tad homophobic for some of the more sensitive viewers today. Estevez, however, seems to lose a bit of inspiration in the second half and the ending looks a little bit unpolished. Although flawed and clearly below its proper potential, Men At Work can still be recommended as light, unpretentious entertainment even to those who aren’t big fans of two brothers.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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