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Quick Change
Quick Change is a 1990 comedy film starring Bill Murray, who also co-directed with the film’s screenwriter Howard Franklin. Geena Davis, Randy Quaid, and Jason Robards co-star. Other cast members include Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci, Phil Hartman, Victor Argo, Kurtwood Smith, Bob Elliott, and Philip Bosco. It is based on a book of the same name by Jay Cronley.
The film is set in New York City, particularly in Manhattan and Queens, with scenes taking place on the New York City Subway and within John F. Kennedy International Airport. Times Square, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty are also briefly seen.
Quick Change is the only directorial credit of Bill Murray’s career.
Plot
Grimm, dressed as a clown, robs a bank in midtown Manhattan. He ingeniously sets up a hostage situation and then slips away with an enormous sum of money and his accomplices: girlfriend Phyllis and best friend Loomis.
The heist itself is comparatively straightforward and easy, but the getaway turns into a nightmare. The relatively simple act of getting to the airport to catch a flight out of the city is complicated by the fact that fate, luck and all of New York City appears to be conspiring against their escape.
For starters, the trio is seeking the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to get the airport, but the signs were taken during construction work, resulting in the three robbers becoming lost in an unfamiliar part of the city. Then, a con-artist/thief robs the trio of everything they have (except the bank money, which they have taped under their clothes).
When changing into new clothes, they are almost gunned down by the stressed incoming tenant of Phyllis’ apartment, as members of the fire department respond to a call by pushing their hydrant-blocking car out of the way only to make it roll into a ditch.
When the three crooks eventually manage to flag down a cab, the driver is hopelessly non-fluent in English. This leads Loomis to jumping out of the moving cab to grab another, but he runs into a newsstand and the driver leaves, thinking he’s killed Loomis. An anal-retentive bus driver, a run-in with mobsters and Phyllis’ increasing desperation to tell Grimm the news that she is pregnant with his child add further complications.
All the while, Rotzinger, a world-weary but relentless chief of the New York City Police Department, is doggedly attempting to nab the fleeing trio. A final confrontation on board an airliner at the airport occurs between the robbers and the chief, who gets the added prize of having a major crime-boss dropped in his lap.
Cast
Bill Murray as Grimm
Geena Davis as Phyllis Potter
Randy Quaid as Loomis
Jason Robards as Chief Walt Rotzinger
Tony Shalhoub as Cab Driver
Philip Bosco as Bus Driver
Phil Hartman as Edison
Jamey Sheridan as Mugger
Stanley Tucci as Johnny
Kurtwood Smith as Lombino
Critical reaction
This little-known film features what critics [2] claim is one of Murray’s finest performances: a jaded man who has just had too much of The Big Apple. The film also features strong performance by the supporting cast, particularly Robards as the police chief Rotzinger, who, while almost as burned out as Murray, is still determined to capture the robbers as a swan song to his long career.
Roger Ebert in his July 13, 1990 Chicago Sun-Times review wrote: "’Quick Change’ is a funny but not an inspired comedy. It has two directors…and I wonder if that has anything to do with its inability to be more than just efficiently entertaining."
Trailer Quick Change (1990)
Trailer Quick Change (1990) – YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TI3QdBEs82M)
I searched and searched and never found anything. Very surprised by that!
Well, I thought I’d never find anything from other 90s comedies like What About Bob, then yepsa posted this great Miles Goodman collection (Thread 117790). So ya never know what might turn up 🙂
