Death to Smoochy

2002

Action / Comedy / Crime / Drama / Thriller

22
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 42% · 119 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 66% · 50K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.3/10 10 43756 43.8K

moderator children's show corruption dark comedy success irish mob

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Plot summary

Tells the story of Rainbow Randolph, the corrupt, costumed star of a popular children's TV show, who is fired over a bribery scandal and replaced by squeaky-clean Smoochy, a puffy fuchsia rhinoceros. As Smoochy catapults to fame - scoring hit ratings and the affections of a network executive - Randolph makes the unsuspecting rhino the target of his numerous outrageous attempts to exact revenge and reclaim his status as America's sweetheart.

Director

Danny DeVito Photo
Danny DeVito

Top cast

Edward Norton Photo
Edward Norton as Sheldon Mopes / Smoochy the Rhino
Robin Williams Photo
Robin Williams as Rainbow Randolph
Pam Ferris Photo
Pam Ferris as Tommy Cotter
Danny DeVito Photo
Danny DeVito as Burke Bennett
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
1004.97 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  es  fr  pt  sv  
23.976 fps
1 hr 49 min
Seeds 3
2.02 GB
1904*1072
English 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  es  fr  pt  sv  
23.976 fps
1 hr 49 min
Seeds 37

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by IonicBreezeMachine 7 / 10

The Cable Guy by way of Barney the Dinosaur, a scathing satire of the vapidness of children's entertainment

After children's TV host Randolph "Rainbow Randolph" Smiley (Robin Williams) is publicly disgraced following a bust in an FBI sting operation, Children's TV network Kidnet swiftly cancels the show with a plan to replace it with someone who's lacking in the baggage of negative publicity. Hardened producer Nora Wells (Catherine Keener) and corporate yes man, Marion Frank Stokes (Jon Stewart) scramble to find someone "squeaky clean" eventually settling for Sheldon Mopes(Edward Norton) and his character Smoochy the Rhino, who sings songs at the Coney Island Methodone Clinic and is sincere and ethical almost to a fault. Sheldon soon finds himself fighting for integrity of both his show and his character as network executives, marketing departments, corrupt charities, even the Irish Mafia all develop an interest in Mopes and his Rhino persona. Meanwhile Randolph continually seeks and orchestrates elaborate revenge schemes against mopes becoming more and more unhinged.A joint British-American co production between Warner Bros. And Film Four, the movie was written by Adam Resnick best known for his work on The Larry Sanders Show as well as his work on Chirs Elliot's TV series Get a Life and the Chris Elliot film Cabin Boy. The movie is a satire of the vapidness and cynicism of the children's entertainment, particularly inspired by Barney the Dinosaur, and takes great pleasure in tearing away the veneer of wholesomeness to reveal the cynical money hungry monster beneath the cuddly foam suit. The film is notable for being a box office disaster making back a mere $8 million of its $50 million budget and in combination with the failure of the following year's Duplex destroyed Danny Devito's directing career in feature films. Roger Ebert even declared the movie the worst of 2002 (it's not). The movie is certainly flawed, but I'd be lying if I said the movie's pitch black gleefully insane takedown of marketing icons masquerading as wholesome children's entertainment didn't raise a few laughs.The movie from the get go is definitely and unapologetically a Adam Resnick project. From it's seemingly innocent framework that is loaded with uncomfortable and taboo subject matter, it's a similar approach to how Resnick took the Dennis the Menace format with Get a Life and got comedy from it by way replacing an 8 year old kid with a 35 year old man. Unlike Get a Life the movie does try to have a "good" character who we're supposed to root for with Sheldon Mopes. It's pretty clear that Resnick is in unfamiliar territory trying to write characters who are supposed to be principled and ethical and Sheldon at points feels more like a parody of someone principled and ethical rather than someone who's supposed to be principled and ethical. I'm not sure what exactly the issue is if it falls more on Resnick who doesn't usually write characters like this or if it falls more on Edward Norton who's not typically a comic actor (at least as it pertains to this very broad exaggerated style of comedy). There are moments where Norton's delivery in the character do work such as a scene where he's tricked by Rainbow Randolph into performing as Smoochy for an event that isn't what he was told it was, but the scenes of him playing for sincerity straight just come off as odd for reasons I can't put my finger on.The movie's best asset is definitely in its unapologetically cruel take on its subject matter, showing the majority of children's TV hosts as being drug addicts, pedophiles, perverts, alcoholics, or subject to some other vice that rules their lives and the studio and network are happy to ignore so long as it doesn't spill over into the public eye. It's a stomach churning take that also manages to be darkly humorous thanks in no small part to a committed assortment of actors such as Danny Devito, Harvey Firestein, Danny Woodburn, Jon Stewart and Catherine Keener who all play their roles very well and create an intriguingly repellent world of foam covered hypocrisy. But easily the best performance belongs to Robin Williams, who plays a disgraced Captain Kangaroo style children's TV host who becomes more insane in his attempted takedowns of Sheldon and his Rhino persona Smoochy with his schemes and meltdowns being comedic highlights of the film.The movie unfortunately loses its edge a bit in a third act that starts off well enough involving a smoochy centric ice show that starts off quite well with a retelling of many of the events of the movie as done by figure skaters that's very entertaining, but it loses its teeth in the final 10 minutes by offering redemption for Rainbow Randolph and not even having the guts to show the ultimate fate of our main antagonists. If I had to guess I'd say this was most likely a studio note to soften the edges of what I can only guess may have been a darker script.Death to Smoochy is a flawed film, but it's also very entertaining with a decent skewering of Children's entertainment and a twisted sense of humor. While certain elements work better than others I think the film is a very well done dark comedy that doesn't pull its punches (mostly).
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Reviewed by pettyfog 7 / 10

Out of the closet.. a little gem. And that's MAY contain..

No, I mean this movie {not FILM} is like one of those things you discover when cleaning out your closet. Maybe you didn't even recall ever having it, but a treasure of sorts.

I wont go into any plot or meanings of them..just some observations:

1. Norton in NO way played this over the top or disinterested... he captured the character perfectly: a pure idealist, neither really innocent or naive, nor stupid. He KNOWS what's what.. just wants nothing to do with it.

2. DeVito plays his favorite role... a really nasty little conniver, so what's wrong with that? 2a. Robin Williams plays yet another variation of robin williams.. and is well cast. Much better than his low point "Father's Day"

3. I'd seen Ms Keener before, but don't recall thinking, wow.. she's sexy! Well, she is.

4. Maybe the TV show scenes were a takeoff on Barney.. but, guess what! There's a polish and wit and GOOD VIBE there that Barney never ever approached.. even in the silly little songs; like an order of magnitude better than the real thing. Hear what I'm saying: this only reinforces why so much scorn is still thrown at Barney the Dinosaur, because the spoof, as often seen in Weird Al's takeoffs on MJ, is MUCH BETTER DONE!

And yes... it is not a kiddie movie, it's an adult dark comedy and has language to match, but if you've ever run across one of these kid-show personalities off the set, you wont be at all surprised.

There's only a FEW belly-laughs in the movie.. but, as others say, a smile all the way through.

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