Neighbors

The first hour of Neighbors is probably more fun than the second, if only because the plot developments come as a series of surprises. After a while, the bizarre logic of the movie becomes more predictable. But Neighbors is a truly interesting comedy, an offbeat experiment in hallucinatory black humor. It grows on you. Read full review

Other than a few laughs the reason for the film is a little puzzling. Ultimately it is Belushi and Aykroyd that make the picture work. When they hit the comedic mark, as they more often than not do here, nothing else seems to matter. Read full review

The situation that Neighbors starts off with is funnier than anything that grows out of it, at least the version of the tale by Mr. Avildsen's and Larry Gelbart, the screenwriter. While Mr. Berger's novel has an aspect of the mysterious to keep it going, the film is solely devoted to hijinks, and the hijinks have nowhere to go. Read full review

Avildsen, however, is hardly a comedy director. Best known for his Oscar-winning ROCKY, he shows little sense of comic set-up and delivery. The result peters out about halfway through the film, with only touches of bizarre flavor in the rest. A ridiculous, cartoonlike score by Conti doesn't help much. Read full review

Once in the proper mood for Neighbors, however, the disappointing discovery is that there isn't a lot of movie there. Neighbors is by no means a laughless debacle like "Buddy Buddy," and as an ambiguous paranoid rattle around life's great cage, the film is funnier and less pretentious than "Being There." It's just too bad that it tends to send you home empty-headed.[24 Dec 1981, p.C1]

In fact, ruthlessly ironing out Berger's subtleties of tone in favour of a rumbustious Animal House collision between Belushi and Aykroyd, it becomes increasingly tiresome, with few funny moments to leaven the proceedings. Read full review

In concert with composer Bill Conti and scriptwriter Larry Gelbart, Neighbors has become a hyper insult festival in which four people pointlessly humiliate each other in a variety of increasingly vicious ways. Sample dialogue: "Leave that warthead alone. C'mon, we've got cesspools to suck." It's enough to make you nostalgic for the Shavian wit of The Gong Show, for the genteel grace of Saturday afternoon wrestling. [19 Dec 1981]

The ads for Neighbors call it "a comic nightmare"; it's more like a sour case of creative indigestion. [21 Dec 1981, p.51]