Bachelor Party (1984)

"Let's have a bachelor party with chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze!”
"Yeah! Yeah yeah! All the things that make life worth living for!"

The Story:

When party animal Rick Gassko (Tom Hanks) does the unthinkable by getting engaged to his girlfriend Debbie (Tawny Kitaen), his buddies (led by ringleader Adrian Zmed) respond the only way they know how: by planning the wildest bachelor party ever. Debbie makes Rick promise that things won’t get too crazy, which is a good idea since her dad (George Grizzard) hates him. In fact, he hates him so much that he hires Debbie’s sleazebag ex-boyfriend (Robert Prescott) to ruin the boys’ night out.

The Review:

25 years before The Hangover, Tom Hanks and company had one hell of a night in their own right. One of the great “boys will be boys” flicks of all time, Bachelor Party is a raunchy, sex-crazed ode to women, beer, and partying. But what’s really interesting is that it’s not an all boys show at all--in fact, the girls throw a bachelorette party that gets wild in its own right, and the girls prove to be just as sex-starved at times. The intertwining pranks and antics linking the two lead to some really funny sequences involving foot long wieners (the “Nick the Dick” scene ranks up there with the great raunchy moments), hookers, mistaken identities, and more. By having the two parties, there’s a sense of movement as the two groups come closer together, leading to some real sparks flying when both collide. An actual conflict is at the center as well: will Rick and Debbie’s love survive the night, or will he fuck it all up?

Of course, we don’t want him to mess up (too bad) because he’s Tom Freaking Hanks, which automatically makes him an affable guy. However, he’s not exactly the Tom Hanks you grew up with during the 90s (which means he is the Tom Hanks you grew up with during the 80s); his first scene involves him hitting on a nun, and he basically spends most of the movie defying just about everyone in his path. He sort of puts on his best Bill Murray impersonation as a guy who thumbs his nose at everything and has a wisecrack for every situation, especially when he’s dealing with Debbie’s father, who thinks he’s an asshole. He’s not, of course, but there is a decided snarkiness to him that’s fun to see in retrospect, given that Hanks has spent the last 20 years doing roles completely opposite of this. People forget that Hanks was a genuinely funny guy who carried comedies like this, The Money Pit, The ‘Burbs, and more during the 80s.

His buddies are also a great crew with similar goals of mayhem and anarchy. They’re also complete sex fiends, with Michael “America Ninja” Dudikoff being especially horny--sex is the only thing he’s good at, after all. The script is also smart enough to put the right characters into certain situations too--I don’t think the search for prostitutes would be nearly as funny if it involved anyone besides Gary Grossman and his Woody Allen-inspired nervous shtick (the payoff here is also one of the great inappropriate scenes of all time). Then there’s Brad (Brad Mollen), who is introduced almost as a myth, the legendary “Peckerhead” who might be the biggest party animal of them all; this is quickly undercut when he’s revealed to be a man broken by (you guessed it) marriage. It’s so bad that the poor bastard spends most of the movie trying to off himself, which he fails at in spectacular fashion.

These guys are matched up against a marvelous pair of jackasses. As soon as Robert Prescott strolls into the picture with his coiffed hairstyle and scarf, you know he’s going to be a jerk who deserves everything that he eventually gets. The rivalry that he develops with Rick’s bunch is the film’s funniest subplot simply because you can’t get enough of seeing him get his comeuppance. An early scene with Grizzard’s character and Rick also paints him into the slimy villain role; the back and forth between he and Hanks is fantastic. Really, all of the back and forth movement is the key element in Bachelor Party, as most of the appeal comes in seeing a bunch of dudes piss off everyone in their path: ex-boyfriends, fathers, hotel managers, etc. Their raucous commitment to debauchery is admirable even by today’s standards; say what you want about The Hangover boys, but they never actually killed the tiger in their bathroom. The same cannot be said for the poor farm animal that wanders into these guys’ hotel room (as always, cocaine is a hell of a drug). (Brett G.)

Tale of the Tape:

8 out of a possible 10 inches.

Image Gallery: 

---