Mr. Unsubtle plays a billionaire who makes a bet that he can can survive in the slums of Los Angeles for a month without money. This is the plot of Sullivan's Travels with a lot of Charlie Chaplin like stuff mixed in.
Life Stinks is one of the better later period Brook's films and that's not saying much. Brooks as usual isn't capable of any kind of subtlety in his acting or his direction. Every scene is constantly hammered into the viewer with the great auteur the constant focus of attention. Preston Sturges could mix slapstick, sentimentality and drama into his films but even Sturges had a hell of a time walking that tightrope in some of his films. Brooks is no Sturges.
The rest of the cast does what they can to keep the film on track. Jeffrey Tambor doesn't get the good lines, but he knows how to deliver a funny and clever performance. One time Disney ingenue Lesly Ann Warren star of such classics as The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band and The Happiest Millionaire is the sexy bag lady he takes up with. One of Mel's old buddies Howard Morris who apparently trained at the same school of overbearing comedians that Brooks came out of is a street person who Brooks befriends.
It would be easy to write something like "Life Stinks and so does this film." But the film doesn't really stink, it's just another mediocre comedy in a long list of mediocre comedies
92 minutes
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