Movie review: ‘The Flamingo Kid’

FloridaGator80

Matt Dillon earned an Oscar nomination for “Crash” and he is outstandingly funny in “There’s Something About Mary.” He’s also excellent in “The Outsiders,” but he’ll always be remembered (as will Janet Jones in a white bathing suit) for “The Flamingo Kid.” Dillon plays a naïve young man in this coming-of-age minor classic from nearly four decades ago. It’s all too easy to forget how good this film is from start to finish. So, if you remember it, make sure to watch it again; if you never saw it, then get your butt in gear and see it soonest. “The Flamingo Kid” is far and away better than 99 out of 100 movies being released today.

‘The Flamingo Kid’
(1984; 100 minutes; rated PG-13; directed by Garry Marshall and starring Matt Dillon, Richard Crenna and Hector Elizondo)

LEARNING LIFE’S LESSONS IN A SIMPLER TIME

(NOTE: I expanded and reorganized this review with a little more opinion and additional trivia as well as the updating of links on Nov. 5, 2017. I again expanded the review on Jan. 24, 2024.)

Although critical accolades such as nominations much less wins for an Oscar or Golden Globe or being a favorite of real film critics are great hallmarks of truly gifted actors, there’s a trait that can be somewhat downright impossible to achieve: being endearing. Many, many actors have tried in the 100+ years since the first motion picture was shown in the U.S. and not that many managed to become endearing on the big or little screens.

(CLICK here … for all my reviews of movies)
(CLICK here … for a chronological list of my reviews)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of ‘007’ movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of sports movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of war movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of Christmas movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of horror movies)

Well, Matt Dillon was certainly endearing in “The Flamingo Kid” and flexes his best acting muscles for this one. Dillon had given several good dramatic efforts (including in “Target” with Gene Hackman – click here for my review), but none match up to “The Flamingo Kid,” even his Oscar nominated work in “Crash.”

Dillon is “Jeffrey Willis,” who is a young man who’s gifted at math, passionate about gin rummy and has typical teenager-type clashes with his father. He finds himself at loose ends in the summer of 1963 and winds up going with friends to a fashionable Long Island beach club. “El Flamingo” is the name of the club and he and a friend play a game of gin and Dillon winds up with a summer job. He ditches the job his father arranged and falls under the spell of the best gin rummy player at the club: Richard Crenna as “Phil Brody.”

Soon, Dillon is scrapping college plans, ignoring his father’s advice and continuing to be sucked into Crenna’s world of car sales and egotistical bullcrap. He gets a vague promise of a high-paying job, but it turns out to be just ephemeral grandstanding by Brody that is nothing more than a stock-boy position. Finally, he discovers Crenna’s cheating ways (not on his wife) and comes out on top in the club’s biggest-ever gin rummy game. He drives away for a final time from the “El Flamingo” after making things right at the club as “The Chiffons’” “One Fine Day” plays and Dillon literally segues his life to the more appropriate working-class accordion music for the final scene where he repairs his relationship with his father.

The entire film is worthy of commentary, but I don’t have the time or expertise, so I’ll move right on to a look at some of the principal cast:

  • Dillon is just right here as the smart-with-numbers, plain-speaking “Jeffrey.” He gets pulled into so many people’s orbit because of his open, guileless personality and Dillon knows how to pull this off. He has also been in the little-remembered “Little Darlings” with Tatum O’Neal and Kristy McNichol as well as the ultra-steamy “Wild Things” with Neve Campbell and Denise Richards.
  • A three-time Golden Globe nominee (including for this one), Crenna gets to have the fun in “The Flamingo Kid.” He’s rich, he’s got a beautiful wife and daughter and gets to do anything he wants whenever he wants. It’s just that he’s a bit sleazy and Dillon’s father quickly sees through the veneer. Crenna eases through his role like he drives one of his sports cars: With aplomb and verve. Crenna has also been in the “Rambo” franchise as well as a long string of TV movies. In film, he’s been in “Summer Rental” and “Body Heat.” He passed at 73 in 2003 of pancreatic cancer.
  • The part of Dillon’s father, “Arthur Willis,” looks as if it was created for Elizondo, whose resume includes a Golden Globe nomination (not for this one). He does this type of character so well: Calm (mostly), intelligent and compassionate as well as worldly-wise with a dash of restrained passion. Elizondo is most familiar as the hotel manager in “Pretty Woman,” for which he snagged his nomination, and has also been in “The Princess Diaries” and its sequel and frankly I like him best in “Necessary Roughness” as the football coach with the same persona (click here for my review). For a darker, more violent role, check him out in the original “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” (click here to read my review).
  • The single most recognized and remembered scene in “The Flamingo Kid” is when Janet Jones, who plays Dillon’s love interest “Carla Samson,” is wearing a white one-piece bathing suit and goes off a diving board and gets out of the pool. Dillon and the majority of the audience are instantly captivated. Too bad that the role for Jones wasn’t bigger and it turns out that she’s only a bit of window dressing in this one. Jones, who’s been married to ice hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky since 1988, has also been in “A Chorus Line,” “The Beastmaster,” “Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach” and even had a small part in “A League of Their Own.”
  • A two-time Golden Globe nominee (not for this one) Jessica Walter plays “Phyllis Brody,” who is the stereotypical uppity, snooty and up-tight Long Island wife. She’s married to Crenna and while she does a good job here, the role is small and too easily gets lost in the wake of this film. Walter had an exceptionally versatile career of 162 credits since the first in 1962 – from being Clint Eastwood’s tormentor in “Play Misty for Me” in 1971 (one of her nominations) to guest spots on dozens of hit TV shows (including eight episodes on the magnificent series “The Love Boat” – click here for my review of that series) and films such as “Slums of Beverly Hills.” She also voiced “Malory Archer” on the animated TV cult favorite “Archer” as well as having been a rich lubricious widow with designs on “Leonard” of TV’s “The Big Bang Theory” – click here to read when that show “Jumped the Shark.” Walter died at 80 in 2021.
  • Brian McNamara plays “Steve Dawkins,” who is one of Dillon’s friends. McNamara plays the smooth rich boy who’s easing through life. McNamara was also a rich guy (but much much snobbier) in simply awful “Caddyshack II” (click here for my review).
  • Bronson Pinochet plays “Alfred Schultz,” who loses (and not magnanimously) in a card game to Dillon. Pinochet’s role is small and it isn’t the movie-stealer that he did that same year in “Beverly Hills Cop” (remember “Serge?”).
  • Future Oscar winner Marisa Tomei has a small role here as “Mandy” and she puts Bronson in his place. She would win the Oscar for “My Cousin Vinny” and also notch credits in films including “Crazy Stupid Love” and “The Paper.”

Director Garry Marshall’s touch is easily spotted. You’ll see parallels in most of his films including “Pretty Woman,” “Runaway Bride,” “The Princess Diaries” and its sequel, as well as “The Other Sister.” Marshall’s most out-of-character film is the breathtakingly adult (at least for him) “Exit to Eden,” but which is no winner as it is a stinkbomb of atomic proportions. Marshall died at 81 of pneumonia in 2016.

“The Flamingo Kid” was the 43rd ranked film at the U.S. box office in 1984 with $23.8 million in ticket sales and was right behind the equally excellent and little-remembered “Moscow on the Hudson” with Robin Williams, according to Box Office Mojo. The No. 1 film of the year was “Beverly Hills Cop” with $234.7 million. Other outstanding movies I can recommend were “Ghostbusters,” the original “Police Academy,” “Footloose” and “Splash” (click here for my review).

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • One of Dillon’s friends, “Hawk Ganz,” is played by Fischer Stevens who is an Oscar co-winner for the outstanding documentary “The Cove.” Stevens is solid here and has also been in “Short Circuit” as well as “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”
  • Keep a close eye and you’ll catch actor’s actor John Turturro as “Ted from Pinky’s.” You probably won’t remember his work here as it is a very small part. I liked him best in “Rounders” (click here for my review) and his three episodes on TV’s “Monk” as the brother of the title character. He was excellent in “The Color of Money” (click here to read my review) with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise as well as in “To Live and Die in L.A.” (click here to read my review).
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “This was the very first film to be given a PG-13 rating. It was shelved for five months, however, making Red Dawn (1984) the first film to be *released* with the PG-13 rating.” Click here to read my review of “Red Dawn” …
  • Reportedly the film was written with Matthew Broderick in the lead, but he didn’t do it and the part went to Dillion after a rewrite. I don’t know … I can see how Broderick would have been good here – but he’s truly not this type of person on screen. I’m glad the part went to Dillon.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “The Silver Gull Club in Breezy Point (NYC) New York was used as the filming location for the fictional El Flamingo Beach Club. The club, which is part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, was heavily damaged by “superstorm” Sandy in 2012.”

© Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples
©2014, ©2017, ©2024
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without
express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner
is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that
full and clear credit is given to Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples
with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Unknown's avatar

Published by FloridaGator80

Leave a Reply