Blind Date (1987) – A Review by HaphazardStuff

https://haphazardstuff.com/blind-date-1987-movie-review/

Way back in 1987 Willis was only known from his role as detective David Addison on Moonlighting, being married to Demi Moore and doing wine cooler commercials. During Moonlighting’s hiatus was when he started to try carve out a film career. Blind Date was really his big screen film debut (aside from very small uncredited appearances). At the time it was unknown if this smirking ‘tv actor’ could make it in movies. He ended up getting billed behind Basinger.

I recall my friends and I going to see Blind Date since we all liked him on Moonlighting. The film was a modest hit, but didn’t really assure that Willis should leave the boob tube just yet. A year later he would reteam with Edwards for Sunset (a movie I don’t think anyone saw, other than my fiends and I). That movie would be an insignificant footnote to Die Hard that would come out a few months later that would rocket Willis his way to movie stardom.

Blind Date is a rather disposable comedy that has the earmarks of the famed physical humor that Edwards was best known for. A romantic comedy that escalates to tragic mayhem. It’s basically a film spilt in two. The first half is the ‘date from hell’ Willis embarks on with Basinger. The second is set at Larroquette’s father’s (William Daniels) plush mansion that’s hosting their wedding.

There are some amusing pieces, mostly during the ‘date half’. Willis is at first pleasantly surprised by Basinger’s reveal and he’s feeling good about this night. After a bit of bubbly, gradually Basinger starts behaving worse and worse. Ripping off his suit pocket, making a scene at the restaurant, torpedoing his company’s big deal and getting Willis fired.

The night moves on with random pitstops where more trouble erupts. The exasperated Willis loses control himself and makes his own embarrassing scenes at another ritzy party. This madcap adventure is being helped along by the manic Larroquette following the couple around and just wildly attacking Willis any chance he gets. The ongoing joke is Larroquette keeps crashing his car into a series of cartoonish buildings, like pet shops, paint stores and flour factories.

No surprise, some bits of comedy work better than others. Willis and Basinger do click together pretty well and make a decent onscreen couple. I always thought Basinger’s hairstyle was off-putting in the film though. It just made her look more average and dowdy than her luscious golden locks, but maybe that was the point. Try to play her looks down a bit and have Nadia be this innocent sweet lady who turns into an uncontrollable wildcat.

Larroquette at the time was also best known as a tv star from playing his Emmy winning comedic foil on Night Court. Here, he doesn’t get to show off the quiet slimy persona he was best known for playing on that show and that made him so enjoyable to watch.

In Blind Date, he’s more like Wile E. Coyote. He acts outrageously angry, very exaggerated and screaming everytime he shows up. He could be much more fun as an adversary being more subtle than just trying to get laughs by comedically strangling someone.

Had the film began and ended with the ‘date night’ I think it would’ve been better. Think of it as romantic After Hours-type of story that unravels and somehow ends happily for our couple over the course of one night.

But things continue on to the next morning. With Walter now arrested and looking at doing some hard time, Nadia’s guilt about what she’s responsible for and that she is willing to do anything to save him. She makes a deal with Larroquette, who turns out to be a lawyer, that if he can spring Willis she’ll marry him. Larroquette manages it, thanks to Daniels the judge, his father. The wedding is scheduled and Willis wants to stop it and win back Basinger.

It’s what goes down at the mansion that really looks like something out of an Edwards movie from the 1960s. Willis sneaking around, an angry doberman chasing him, slipping on golf balls, doors being slammed, pratfalls, put upon servants, It plays as a very old fashioned type of screwball comedy that I just never found very funny.

The setups aren’t very clever and it plays as much staler and old fashioned than what came before. Edwards could stage elaborate and funny situations at a big house. Rewatching this section, I was immediately reminded of Edwards’ entertaining 1968 comedy The Party, with Peter Sellers making mayhem at a ritzy Hollywood party at a mansion. But the gags and predicament in Blind Date are much more forced and the stakes don’t feel as high to help the comedy.

It’s pretty silly if you think about it. Willis spends most of the time trying to contact Basinger the night before the wedding, but he has to avoid being seen so there’s a lot of diving into bushes and hiding behind trees.