Film: Just One of the Guys

I saw this film a couple of dozen times in the 80s, thanks to HBO. If you were to ask me about it then, I'd have rated it somewhere around a B minus. It wasn't anywhere near the major leagues with the Hughes films (even lesser Hughes, like Weird Science, with which it shares formula), but on the other hand it was far better than other teen films in HBO's short list for heavy rotation, crap like Mischief or Fraternity Vacation.  The early Tom Cruise film Losin' It is approximately on Guys' level of quality.

In other words, it was a reasonable time-killer when, like Ferris, you had a computer instead of a car.

As with much of the genre, the intervening years haven't been very kind to it, though Guys does rate a mildly endorsing footnote in most studies of 80s teen cinema. I hadn't much thought about it in years, but ended up seeing it again when it became part of Netflix streaming (truly, the HBO heavy rotation of today).  I was pleasantly surprised to see the film offered some interesting subversions of the teen genre, but still overall the story never escapes the trappings of its b-list pedigree.

Like my original film entry Red Dawn, there's not much about JOotG on the interwebs, so here it is, punishing me for not thinking about it for a decade or two.  There's clearly enough meat on these bones if someone were to remake it today.




As it stands, though, it's quickly apparent is that the original film has two major problems.  The first is that movie poster and video cover depict film heroine Terry (Joyce Hyser)  shirtless in the boys' locker room, look-at-me smirk on her face, a towel and a pair of football helmets to keep her modest.  The gender-reversed reference to Porky's promises an empowering and bawdy time for all, with no Balbricker in sight.

However, Guys has no interest in being that film.  Instead, it has a career empowerment aspect that is pretty much buried under the formula teen romance.  The bawd, however, is almost totally absent. Sure, it borrows a couple of points from the Bob Clark canon, but it would rather hew closer to a UHF-station friendly PG rating while stealing, shamelessly at times, from the early Hughes films.  There's no sex in the film, little raunch, and the brief instances of nudity are usually vital to the story.  This is not your hoped-for Lusty Locker-room Laughs; the locker room scene promised on the cover is a long wind-up for a... (fully clothed) fire alarm pull.  No, at its heart the story is a gender-reverse Weird Science tale of a Magical Girl reforming a nerdy scrub into date material, with the single freshening twist that the magical girl is the story's protagonist.

I

Poor Denise.

But to give the film credit where due for taking a few further, ancillary risks, is that when the film opens, Terry is an arrogant, unlikable snob.  With rich parents, lead-actress looks, and no apparent problems beyond horndog little brother Buddy (Bobby Jacoby), Terry could well be the Claire Standish of Pearl High.  She treats her best friend Denise (who needily exposits herself as such upon entrance) with impatient scorn.  Their conversational dynamic quickly establishes that for first-act Terry, "best friend" means "first lackey."

Only after properly flattering Terry about her "perfect college boyfriend," will Terry trouble herself to evaluate Denise's potential prom dates.  Like Watts or Betty Finn, Denise is cute enough to be the sidekick in a feature film.  However, condemned to tepid responses to Buddy's come-ons in the sorry vein of "when pigs fly," and lacking Terry's obvious, teacher-leering hawtness, the film insists that poor Denise is destined to die alone.  Given this uneven friendship, it's not surprising that Denise's prom date ends up being at a different high school with Terry herself...

Having introduced Terry in sideways fashion, we now must learn what it is she wants beyond this problem-free life.  Our story truly begins as that problem-free life is thrown into disarray. The school's newspaper advisor, Mr. Raymaker, (longtime character actor Ken Tigar, whom I'll always think of as lovesick Spinkus from future blog subject Bosom Buddies) politely suggests her entry to a contest for a summer newspaper internship is not up to snuff.   Little did he realize that Terry's ambition in life is to be a newspaper reporter, though his ignorance may be excused by her motivation being ever so 80s-thin: an alleged writer, she never articulates her ambitions in terms beyond I-want-this.

"No" is something that Terry Griffith doesn't hear very often.  Raymaker far overplays his chiding hand by suggesting she "find something to fall back on, like modeling."  While Terry was fortunately -- if barely -- absent for Raymaker's earlier faculty evaluation of her body, she now has confirmation: sexism, not her mediocre journalism about the chestnut topic of school lunches is the thing that's really holding her back.

If only there were some plausible way she could prove it...

The two trials of Terry.

The distraught Terry finds no comfort at home.  Perfect college boyfriend Kevin, (Leigh McCloskey, specialist in aryan douchebag roles, ranging from the aforementioned Fraternity Vacation to Glen Larson's Buck Rogers.   If he could have cracked the A-list 80s teen pantheon,  McCloskey would not be out of place as one of Spader's Pretty in Pink crew) rather than offering comfort, Kevin absently shorts her career ambitions while attempting to weasel her out of her clothes.  The gross insensitivity moves his evening with her at his frathouse to him alone in the doghouse.

And Terry's blood relatives are of no help: Mom and dad are in europe for two weeks to facilitate the main plot, so her complaints about female objectification fall to Buddy.  She's met with not only by the film's first sequence of lame sibling banter -- the two exhibit zero chemistry or comic timing, and are forever talking toward each other, never with -- but also a little fresh objectification as he wallpapers his room in centerfolds; doubtless a comment on Terry's future according to Raymaker.   But unlike most of Buddy's scenes, where he appears like a sitcom's wacky neighbor to deliver a few lines of horny teen shtick and then vanish, this one serves a vital purpose which sets her onto the main story of the film: Terry is inspired to do as any wronged  American High School girl would in the May of their senior year: register for classes at a nearby school while cross-dressing in order to submit her still-boring contest entry fraudulently under a male byline.

Look, it's stupidly improbable any of these could happen at all, much less without serious complications, however the film treats those details as fait accompli. Terry is never in any serious danger of early discovery regardless of incredibly suspect behavior, nor does her academic standing at Pearl ever become an issue. And since our story is built around this conceit, let's just pretend it's plausible and move along...

The second major problem of the film is its inversion of what I refer to as the marginal rule of bad cinema. There are a lot of disappointing to nominally bad films that I enjoy for the sidelines, even if the central story is crap.  Elements like supporting characters, a stolen scene or two, insightful (if sometimes unintended) social commentary, and able delivery of genre cliches can bring a bit of redemption to an otherwise tremendous failure.  B-movies ranging from Porky's to Tron have rote stories, but contain enough texture in the margins to make them enjoyable.

Here, the central story -- or more accurately, the subtext of the central story, is a flawed but kind of admirable: Terry the inadvertently terrible needs a shock of personal growth to graduate from her high school attitude.  In this, along with a few of its minor plot points, Guys would be far better served in a 90s boutique-studio milieu.  In its native decade its reach far exceeds its grasp, but I'll grant it that a critique of the tropes of 80s teen cinema made during the height of the era took some courage.

The rest of the film does its level best to bury that courage far, far down.


II

With the shades, she can pass.

    Terry's introduction to the relentlessly cartoony setting of Sturgis-Wilder High, with eighty minutes left in the film, is where Guys demonstrably abandons its lofty goals.
    Naturally, we must remember that we're not viewing a film about Terry's realistic trials and tribulations as a male; all of that is just the pretense for a magical girl romance, to which Sturgis-Wilder is the cheap backdrop.  So while the film aspires, lazily, toward a Hughes milieu, it's not especially interested in getting any of the essential High School details right. This affectless, bland hackery is unsurprising when you know the screenwriter: Jeff Franklin, later a chief contributor of  Full House and from the looks of it, his IMDB bio.

Subtext? No sir!

   Terry's first meeting with the student body adequately showcases the target maturity level of the film.  Our villain, Greg "sweep the leg" Tolan (like the name of the high school, a little film-school allusion; this is as clever-in-the-margins as we'll get) interrupts a soliloquy which stresses the similarity between lifting weights and jerking off (...) by picking on a freshman.  Terry, acting as her entitled upper-class self from Pearl High, finds these antics uproarious.  Greg, unaccustomed to such praise, throws Terry into a bramble and saunters off with his entourage.

It's there, unceremoniously dumped in a bramble, where she meets the imminent object of her affections, Rick Morehouse.  But let's linger a moment longer on old Greg.  The problem with him isn't simply that he's a one-note bullying asshole; this is a high school film in the 80s, and they all must have a bullying asshole.  It's not even the lazy typecasting of poor William Zabka, who by many accounts is a nice guy in real life.   The problem with Greg is that a bully like him isn't a high school species: his favorite activities of power-wedgies and trashing the cafeteria are those of a schoolyard terror half his age, maybe less. That he never shakes Terry down for milk money is a rare instance of Guys' restraint.  There would be a larger story-internal problem if he were correct: modeling his behavior on the more age-appropriate entitled jock -- and how else does he get to be prom king if he's not -- would make Greg and Kevin nearly indistinguishable. McCloskey should be Zabka's screen brother, but perhaps this is the sort of criticism a better film from the following decade might attempt.

 Rick, likewise, is problematic. A "professional new kid" who quietly lives in the background of Sturgis Wilder, he's no Jason Dean. Timid and inept with the girls, it's easy to imagine Rick's pre-Terry destiny of high school anonymity.  When a curious, desperate-for-a-friend Terry invites herself into his house and plies him with beer, he reveals his only romantic experience was a pity screw following the death of his father (from his mom's friend) and Terry's instantly sorry she asked.  The awkward moment underscores how little there is to recommend him as friend material, aside from his proto-90s drab-color wardrobe, uncommon white nerd love of James Brown, and high hairline -- all things out of step with 80s teen movies, but which would be offbeat-cool ten years later.

"I think it's spreading!" guy

Yes, Rick may be no prize to start, but just take a look at the other students with speaking roles at Sturgis-Wilder, a collection of sorry lifts from the film's betters. Rick, to borrow Denise's words, is the only "semi-lame" choice.

Phil, Willie, "Reptile" Sherbico

The STD guy is happily a one-off, but the film is enamored of the others; Reptile shows up throughout the film, fresh creatures with him each time.  Even to prom.   As for Willie and Phil, one assumes Franklin felt the raygun-wielding, jock-headed dorks who lived on Samantha Baker's bus route were secret comedy gold...

Sandy, doomed to deflower Buddy.

Last but not least is Sandy, played by the criminally underutilized and future it-girl Sherilyn Fenn.  She's instantly smitten by Teri's hybrid Macchio-Costello look, but it's ten years too early to develop her crush into even a brief, pandering kiss.  Lost in the cutting room is how Buddy manages to charm her into bed, a scenario which could have been played for maximum laughs if he were someone who, 1: looked at all like his sister, or 2: the audience had any emotional investment in and was not merely a shtick machine...

All of these folks accept Terry as a guy.  Unfortunately, being a guy means your journalism teachers have no trouble telling you the hard truth: you're boring.   Now fully committed, Terry resolves to stay at Sturgis until a new story idea comes to her.  Wonder what it will be? While initially dismissing Rick as "research," Terry begins crushing on him as Rick repeatedly fails to notice the way this guy who likes working on his car, plays football, and dates an exotic vixen named "Kevina" is looking at him, touching his hair, and packing a lunch for him.

III

Sensing the invisible signal to move into the third act, Teri decides the only thing keeping Rick from the ladies -- and her from reconciling with Kevina -- is Rick's 90s wardrobe.  The social rehab of Mr. Morehouse leaves little time for our glowering, douchey,  PCBF, who soon begins to resent Terry's reporter ambitions, but he'll make one last play for her...

Karate Kid callback?

After Terry buys Rick a more period-hep wardrobe that leaves him looking like the poor man's Val Kilmer, he's a huge hit.   Particularly with Greg Tolan's long-suffering girlfriend Deborah, one of the few nice people in this film lacking a hidden agenda.  She takes such a liking to the new-look Mister Morehouse that Greg promptly trashes Rick's new threads.  In turn, Rick publicly humiliates Greg in the cafeteria, the site of his many victories against the custodian.  This wins Rick the hapless, perfect Deborah as prom date!



Also, Rick's mooncalfing over Deborah stokes Terry's raging jealousy, but he forces her to double date with them to Sturgis-Wilder's tropical prom, where major stories climax and minor ones receive grace notes.  First out of the way is Denise, happy to find a whole bunch of guys who "didn't know she used to be fat." (really, that's why she's a pariah at Pearl?) It's implied she goes home with the mullet-rocking thirty-something lead from the band.

Next,  Sherbico, Phil, and Willie all have dates!  Also, Terry half-assedly makes peace with Sandy, who doesn't even try to move in on Terry when Denise abandons her to canoodle with the mullet man.

But the tropical theme was chosen so it can assist the excitement by enacting the Siskel-Ebert "fruit cart" trope during the climactic throwdown of Tolan-Morehouse II.   If the beach set looks a trifle suspect once bodies start hitting the water, it's because Scottsdale water park BigSurf served as the location.

Rick destroys Greg.  Should've happened last act.

Alas for Greg and Rick, this isn't their movie, and their buffet-trashing fight is just an appetizer for the real climax: Terry's final breakup with Kevina, who awkwardly confesses his love for her before she just as awkwardly outs herself to Rick.  A better film would let the drama of the moment carry itself, but no, Terry must show him what the dvd cover promised.  In turn, Rick acts more offended than seems warranted by the revelation that his clothes-buying, date-getting, lunch-making, character-rehabbing buddy has tits.

Or is that just my modern sensibility intruding?

Rick leaves the prom in a huff, dragging Deborah with him.  Looks like Rick is the new Greg! Through her tears, Terry drafts a fresh article about her life as a boy, allowing Raymaker a moment of personal triumph: he has personally inspired one of his students to work hard and make her dreams come true.  While their brief scene is there only to set up her film-closing reconciliation with Rick (Deborah is unmentioned; one must wonder if she's back with Greg); it's a nice little moment that could be kept in a remake.

Kevin is back to square one, picking up on high school girls.

--

Pros: Subverts some genre tropes and is not completely removed from being genuinely good.
Cons: Everyone in the supporting cast.

Then: B-
Now: B-