One of my friends summed up Weekend at Bernie's in four words: "There's a dead
guy".
That really is all you need to know about this film. It's very much a one gag comedy. The
film could have been called "101 Uses For a Dead Guy". Fortunately the single joke is
done very well.
Things start badly with a tedious and contrived set-up. Two friends (Andrew McCarthy and
Jonathan Silverman) working at an
insurance company stumble upon evidence of a massive fraud. They take this to their boss
Bernie (Terry Kiser) without realising that he is actually the one behind the swindle. Bernie thanks
them and invites them to spend a weekend at his luxury beach house. The plan is that
once there they will be killed off.
Needless to say it's Bernie who ends up dead. For reasons too contorted to be worth
repeating the two protaganists decide not to tell anyone but to pretend all weekend that
Bernie's still alive.
Given the party lifestyle of the beach set this provides lots of opportunity
for comedy, much of it wonderfully tasteless. Some of this is simple physical comedy as we see a corpse
manipulated like a ventriloquists's dummy; some is at the expense of the empty-headed
beautiful people who can't tell when one of their own is dead; some consists of very
clever sight gags.
The plot is unbelievable, the characters one-dimensional and obnoxious. I kept wishing the
film had been titled "101 Uses for Three Dead Guys". Potential interest comes
from Don Calfa as the bewildered hitman, however his involvement is limited to a few sub-Peter
Lorre grimaces.
All that said, there are some genuinely funny and a few really clever moments.
Weekend at Bernie's gave me half a dozen good belly laughs and for that reason alone
it's worth watching - but it's defintely a "rent" not a "buy".
