At one point in the 1983 zany comedy "The Survivors", Robin Williams says to co-star Walter Matthau: "I was overreacting." It would have been more accurate if he had said "I was overacting" because Williams, who was certainly a comedic genius, also had the ability to go over-the-top in his quest to get a laugh or, conversely, to ring sentiment from playing dramatic scenes in a mawkish manner. To paraphrase Longfellow's famous poem, "When he was good, he was very, very good, but when he was bad, he was horrid." In "The Survivors", Williams doesn't quite reach the level of being horrid and there's plenty of blame to go around for this misfire, but he certainly contributes to its quick demise thanks to his failure to get a definable grip on his character. The premise of the film must have seemed promising when it was first developed as a vehicle to reunite Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, who had found great success co-starring in "The In-Laws". For whatever reason, the reunion never materialized and Joseph Bologna was signed to co-star with Williams under the direction of Michael Ritchie. Ritchie had an interesting background, having directed an eclectic assortment of films. They ranged from his acclaimed drama "Downhill Racer", the sports comedies "Semi-Tough" and "The Bad News Bears", the political satire "The Candidate", the social satire "Smile" and the bizarre but hypnotic crime thriller "Prime Cut"- all good movies, indeed. But shortly after production started, Bologna walked off the film, citing the oft-used excuse of "creative differences", presumably with Ritchie. Walter Matthau was called in to replace him, having worked successfully with Ritchie on "The Bad News Bears". The script was by Michael Leeson, who had written most of the scripts for the landmark sitcom "The Cosby Show". So far, so good.
"The Survivors" opens in New York City during the grungy period of the early 1980s. Robin Williams plays Donald Quinelle, an affable but bumbling executive who thinks his career is set, only to report to work and experience being fired by his boss's talking parrot. He is put through the grueling process of applying for unemployment insurance, which is made to look like a old breadline from the Soviet era. Meanwhile, we're introduced to Walter Matthau as Sonny Paluso, a long-time franchisee of a gas station. He is equally unceremoniously dismissed when the oil company decides to revoke his franchise, leaving him high and dry and without unemployment insurance, due to a legal technicality. Prior to this, we had seen the wholesale destruction of his gas station when Donald,who was fueling up in a careless manner, accidentally ignites the place with a tossed cigarette. The two men later find themselves coincidentally dining at the same restaurant when it is held up by a masked man who demands that the captive patrons disrobe and hand over their money. Donald resists and bumbles his way into subduing the bandit, getting wounded in the process and becoming a fleeting hero in the media. The bandit is Jack Locke (Jerry Reed), a cool-as-a-cucumber one-time hit man who has been affected by the economic downturn, thus he's been reduced to being a small-time robber. He manages to get out of police custody and he has both men in his sites as revenge for turning him in. He breaks into Sonny's house, where the divorced dad lives with his precocious, porn-loving 16 year-old daughter Candice (Kristen Vigard) and prepares to kill Sonny. An unexpected drop-by visit by Donald results in a series of bizarre comedic set pieces. Cutting to the chase (literally), Donald inexplicably becomes an expert in self-defense and amasses an arsenal of assault weapons. He has fallen under the spell of a far right cult leader, Wes Huntley (James Wainwright), who runs a paramilitary camp in rural Vermont. Donald leaves his fiancee and heads for the hills to join the cult. Sonny learns that Jack Locke knows his whereabouts and he and Candice race to the camp to warn Donald. The whole mad, mad, mad, mad fiasco disintegrates further when Reed shows up and attempts to murder Donald and Sonny, but ends up allying himself with them when they are marked for death by Wes. If you think all of this is convoluted to read, wait until you see it unwind on screen.
A major problem with the production is that Matthau is playing in a semi-realistic comedy whereas director Ritchie allows Williams to dabble in theatre of the absurd. One minute, he's in Robin Williams lovable loser mode, the next minute he's like a raving psychopath. Rarely have I seen him so consistently unfunny. Matthau steals the film by simply playing a typical Walter Matthau character: grumpy with his trademark hangdog facial expressions. Jerry Reed tries his best to invigorate the hit man character, but it's wildly inconsistent and unbelievable. Once the action shifts to Vermont, the pace is deadly and the jokes become weaker and more repetitive. It's as though Ritchie was just trying to run out the clock in order to meet the minimal running time. The film also suffers from some very sloppy aspects that are inexcusable. In the beginning of the film, a preoccupied Donald stops at Sonny's station to gas up- but he fails to insert the hose into the gas tank, thus allowing fuel to flow everywhere and later ignite when he tosses a cigarette nearby. The scene is absurd, but for all the wrong reasons. Even if Donald doesn't see the ocean of fuel gathering on the ground around him, why would he not smell the pungent odor? Later, when Donald becomes suddenly obsessed with owning weapons, he drops by a local gun fair where enthusiasts are passing around military-grade hardware that is being sold openly and seemingly with no questions asked. However, at the time, New York City had (and continues to have) some of the strongest gun control laws in the United States. I have never heard of such events taking place there, though they are common in other parts of the country. It rings hollow and makes it seem like screenwriter Michael Leeson had never been in Gotham in his life. Additionally, when Donald decides to move to Vermont, he gets there via a taxi cab. The scenario calls out for a joke, but, alas, none comes. Let's set the record straight: in an unemployed person decided to travel to Vermont via a local taxi in 1983, they would still be paying off the fare today.
When "The Survivors" opened, it met with deadly reviews and was considered a boxoffice failure. New York Times critic Vincent Canby bemoaned the film thusly, "Most astonishing is that a director of Mr. Ritchie's taste and talent could have allowed a project of such utter foolishness to get to the point that it was actually filmed." Indeed.
("The Survivors" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Click here to order the DVD from Amazon)