Renaissance Man

Can somebody stop Penny Marshall before she directs again? She obviously can’t help herself from being compulsively driven to make bad comedies. Just look at her track record.

With the money-making exception of Big (which was a remake of an Italian movie) and A League of Their Own (a theatrical sit-com), she’s largely squandered both time and talent in the pursuit of such box office dross as Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Awakenings. With Renaissance Man, Marshall once again demonstrates that she can’t figure out how to make a movie, even when the whole project is strictly paint-by-numbers.

Renaissance Man is simply To Sir With Love dressed in military khaki. Danny DeVito plays a Detroit advertising executive whose abrasive approach to sales drives clients away faster than a Barry Manilow jingle. He;s supposed to be a burn-out case with a money hungry ex-wife and an emotionally neglected teenage daughter. Midway through the first reel, his troubles double when he becomes an ex-employee.

This is where the fun starts. At the unemployment office, DeVito gets a new job. An army base is looking for a teacher who can motivate boot camp underachievers, in what appears to be the Pentagon’s version of Operation Headstart. Despite the fact that there are probably several million unemployed teachers available for the job, DeVito is the stiff they hire.

So the reluctant Mr. Chips goes to Ft. McClane, where he has to take a pack of Room 222 rejects and propel them to the Head of the Class. Seizing on Shakespeare as the subject to teach, DeVito turns these future Gomer Pyles into a Dead Soldier’s Society, while helping them learn their :thees” and “thous.” With a bit of Hamlet and Henry V under their belts, these misfits shape up into fine army specimens – once again proving that where there’s a Will, there’s a way.

Renaissance Man is the kind of movie that’s been filmed a thousand times, and all Marshall had to do was deliver the predictable plot points. But despite the movie’s two-hours-plus running time, you come away feeling as if major scenes were left out. The characters, and their relationships to each other, are never adequately fleshed out, and DeVito’s change from cynical jerk to devoted teacher must take place off-screen.

DeVito is the only thing that keeps Renaissance Man from totally crumbling, but he’s much better at hostility than he is at cuddly warmth. Which is why the first half hour of Renaissance Man is the only part of the movie worth the price of admission – the rest of it simply proves that Marshall should be sent back to basic training.