Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Apparently not very demanding at all, Bryan Spicer's "For Richer or Poorer" remains a pleasure to watch in 2017, as it was when it came out. Perhaps because of its Amish setting, there is a particular timelessness about the concept of city slickers in trouble with the law and with a marriage on the rocks rediscovering older, deeper values - and each other - that defies or goes beyond both this movie's sillier moments or easy attempts to ridicule or deride the piece on the part of the watcher. At some level there is a pleasant depth and warmth here that owes much to Tim Allen's approach to movies, as nicely complemented by Kirstie Alley's surprisingly tangible sexiness ... and considerable capacity for comedy. The fact that both play characters incompetent and out of their depth in the midst of the simplicity and incredible hard work of the rural idyll in which they find themselves (for them actually a refuge from the IRS) is fun, but far augmented by the actuak willingness of the characters to adapt, muck in and keep trying, which ultimately yields its rewards. And the reward for us watching is to note the at-times sweet and subtle ways in which our misfitting pair experiencing strained relations gradually come back to each other. Those not made of stone will find themselves rooting for the couple, willing them to get back together - and that surely has much to say about the good and the bad (but also the essential value and sweetness and even sanctity) of the much-derided institution of marriage. If the Amish presentation is a bit one-dimensional, well it's certainly not hostile, indeed doing much to suggest that this lifestyle is an ideal one that can change much for the better.It's actually surprising that one even feels the need to raise such issues in the context of what looks at first glance like nothing more than a lightweight screwball comedy, but then that is really a tribute to this film, which in my view achieves quite a bit more than it sets out to.

Brad (Tim Allen) and Caroline Sexton (Kirstie Alley) are showy real estate developer who's always on the hustle. They are an annoying pair who are only outwardly rich. They get framed by their accountant Bob Lachman (Wayne Knight). The bickering twosome is too hard to watch. Why would anybody want to stay with this married couple if these two angry people don't.Of course Brad steals a cab on the run from gun shooting IRS agents, and Caroline just happens to hop on for no reason. The two unlikeable people escape and crash in Amish country. There they learn to be wonderful caring sweet people. Call somebody who cares.These people are ugly. And Tim Allen had this moment when he's trying to get money from the ATM. They had his ugly mug stuffed right onto the screen yelling at the audience. It's a horrible moment in cinema. The greatest sin is that nothing here is unfunny. Absolutely nothing.

Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley star in this as Brad and Caroline Sexton, an unhappy but high-rolling couple who suddenly find themselves in trouble with the IRS and flee to an Amish community to hide out in by posing as their distant relatives and being accepted into the fold. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because it is. This is basically a comedy remake of 1985's "Witness," in which Harrison Ford hid out in an Amish community to escape the corrupt cops pursuing him.The comedy was mixed. There was what I would consider to be some pretty typical farm humour (things like Brad being dragged on the ground behind a plow horse) but there was nothing outrageously funny. The film did a good job of portraying the change that the Amish community begins to make in the Sextons' life as they begin to rediscover their love for each other and as they start to buy into the Amish version of morality - simplicity, hard work and honesty. The Amish community really didn't come across to me as especially authentic. Mind you, it also wasn't a parody. There was no disrespect for the Amish; it just seemed to lack a degree of authenticity, at least to me.Allen and Alley did a good job of portraying the Sextons' change of heart, but they had no real spark with each other in my opinion. The movie is nothing to write home about, and in a handful of places - especially some of the early scenes between Brad and Caroline - it's a bit crude. It's passable - but nothing more to be honest. (4/10)

Okay, so most of this movie is not plausible, such as a lot of what happens once Brad and Caroline manage to convince an Amish family that they are relatives, but we'll let that one go for now. This is Tim Allen, as Brad, and Kirstie Alley as Caroline, and they are not two of our better actors out there now. But what they do, for the most part, is entertaining, if not predictable. And that is what this movie is: entertaining and predictable. The plot centers around a couple, who we learn early on cannot stand each other, and the fact that their financial manager has been cheating them on their taxes. We'll let it also go that a smart business person would not check his or her own taxes before signing. Then we have an armed IRS agent, obviously a nut-case, who goes after Brad and Caroline with a passion, and the couple somehow manages to end up in the same cab in their escape from New York (sorry, could not resist). They end up in PA and convince an Amish family that they are relatives, and thus are allowed to stay. We find out later why this man allowed them to stay, which also is not plausible, but a gap had to be filled in, and I guess that this was the best the writers could come up with at the time. This is your typical fish-out-of-water story, and some of the jokes are funny as are Allen's facial expressions. He does do that well. His little speech to Big John is actually very funny, as are most of the scenes with this horse. Sanders as Samuel Yoder was okay, but he did not behave the way we all know the Amish do, and that did not sit too well with me. So, if you can set aside the fact that what happens really would never happen, and this includes running away from the IRS, then just sit back and enjoy the ride.