Not one of anyone's best work. This came out the same year as Cocoon. Guttenberg had just started the famous Police Academy franchise. Some other pretty big names in comedy -- Alan Arkin (In-Laws), Julie Hegarty (Airplane), Bill Macy (Maude), Curtis Armstrong, Julie Kavner. Also Gilbert Gottfried and Taylor Negron. He and Bob Romanus were in Fast Times together a couple years earlier! When Jeff can't get into med school, he heads off to attend class at a cut rate school. Somewhere in south america, according to the caption. Although imdb says parts were filmed in spain. Of course, the headmaster is the dictator of the country! When Jeff is shot on a field trip, he wants to leave, but Liz talks him into staying and trying to help the locals. The school has only one cadaver, so studying for the exams might be a problem. Unless they can round up another one. It's all just very okay. It's a lot of effort for the jokes they do. The running gag is how incompetent the headmaster is. Novel by Steven Horowitz, Neil Offen. Directed by Harvey Miller. He was involved in lots of television: Love American Style, The Odd Couple. Was even nominated for Private Benjamin. (really!) sadly, Taylor Negron died young from cancer, at age 57.

'Bad Medicine' is not one of the best med-students comedy that I have seen. It's method of comedy and hilarity wavers frequently, perhaps some of the jokes are just too subtle or perhaps they are too dated and the finished product reminds me of Young Doctors in Love, a movie full of stupid comedy that should be funnier but for some reason, just isn't.

Steve Guttenberg plays Jeff Marx, a struggling first-year med student at a fourth-rate, sketchy medical school in Mexico. Classes are taught in Spanish, they all share one cadaver, and their praticioner field trips are little more than public relations opportunities. Despite the family trend of medical professionals, he is certain that he doesn't want to be a doctor, but the outrageous situations that ensue are about to make him reconsider. The ambitious students, which includes Curtis Armstrong as pharmacology expert, Dennis Gladstone, Julie Hagerty as the soft-spoken Liz Parker, Julie Kavner as the witty Cookie Katz, and Robert Ramanus as Carlos. Working cleverly under the nose of the self-involved school director, Dr. Ramón Madera (Alan Arkin), they seek to secretly help the town peasants with their medical ailments.

The movie tends to drag on at points, but this particular comedy might be one of those 80s comedies best suited for lazy weekend 'noon viewings. If nothing else, viewers might be attracted to its fairly familiar cast, which also includes Gilbert Godfried (not doing his shtick) and my personal favorite, Taylor Negron as Pepe the Cab Driver (who ironically, also appeared in Young Doctors in Love).

The inmates are running the hospital in this often ridiculous, sometimes very funny spoof of the medical profession, particularly supposed schools outside of the United States where students with not so great grades can get their license to practice medicine. Steve Guttenberg is way below to get into medical school so father Bill Macy sends him to a fictional Spanish speaking country which is presented as backwards where American students are either abused, fetichized or ignored while the medical school head (an over-the-top Alan Arkin) runs it as if he was a dictator.

Both Julie Kavner and Julie Hagerty seem aged out of their roles, and while Kavner gets really funny lines, Hagerty doesn't seem to want to be there. What worked in "Airplane!" fails here. Curtis Armstrong and Richard Romanus are luckier with their roles, although Armstrong's character isn't especially defined. Romanus, as a New Yorker of Puerto Rican decent, pretends to be local since he speaks Spanish to get the regular tuition, and his character is sort of Guttenberg's protector.

The writing presents the Spanish speaking characters in one dimensional ways with one school employee obviously playing up to Guttenberg so he'll marry her and take her home, while the locales have very stereotypical characteristics and often act first and barely even think later. A scene in a local prison confirms this. There are some very funny moments but a lot of it made me shudder as there are also a lot of purposely gross out gags. This isn't the big disgusting flop that I predicted it would be, but its style of humor is not for everyone.