First thing’s first, rest in peace Uncle Phil Hartman. This won’t be the only time we see the god in an issue this month, but we have to get that out of the way first and foremost. I miss Phil Hartman and wish he was still around to crank out gems like today’s feature, the 1995 masterpiece Houseguest, also starring the iconic Sinbad in his 90’s heyday. You dear readers know I love me some Sinbad. Some of you who have known me for awhile may remember in summer of 2014 where I copied his look of wearing a small towel on my shoulder with every outfit. Sinbad has always been cool as hell to me, and this movie has always been one of my favorites. The fact that it has pretty bad ratings makes it the perfect candidate to dedicate an issue to, and I’ve been looking forward to getting to this one for awhile.
Houseguest centers around a dreamer named Kevin Franklin who is liked by his community but is a sucker for get-rich-quick schemes and his desire to become a millionaire has put him in debt to the mob for $50K, which he ducks by assuming the role of an old friend of Gary Young whom he hadn’t seen since childhood and was expecting for the weekend. This is a classic fish out of water comedy and also features the trope of “main character pretending to be someone else” so I have to write two fucking names every time I want to talk about the character. This seems to be a trend in bad movies, but that’s besides the point. This movie may have some glaring plot holes and wrap up a little too conveniently, and also features at least five prominent McDonald’s product placement scenes (which I noticed seeing it in the theater as a kid so they’re pretty obvious), but it’s still one of my favorites and I can’t wait to discuss it, so let’s get into it.
We open at a museum as a nun leads a group of orphans through the exhibits while a young Kevin Franklin causes trouble. He’s a regular jokester, quipping that he’s the poorest orphan in Pittsburgh. The nun makes a speech about Poseidon also being an orphan while standing near a statue of Poseidon. Kevin vows to be a millionaire driving a Porsche when he gets older. We cut to twenty-five years later and adult Kevin (Sinbad) is driving a piece of shit that’s behind a Porsche and narrating his own radio show or something while his car falls apart. He also narrates some kind of award speech about himself? I don’t know. He does not seem actively aware of his present situation (driving a dangerous car) and seems to think he’s some famous guy like…like he’s Sinbad or someone. He goes to shoot hoops with some teenagers and tosses his groceries into one guy’s arms and dunks on him. It’s fucking awesome. The teens seem to simultaneously like and mock Kevin.
In Kevin’s apartment, we get our first McDonald’s product placement of the many we will see in this movie. Kevin feeds his hamster, Shaq, and continues to discuss the million dollars he wants to come into, then he watches some kind of inspirational get-rich-quick instructional video. He receives a box with like a million packs of baseball cards with plans to get rich off them, which his friend Larry (Stan Shaw) criticizes as yet another scheme that’ll lead Kevin nowhere. Kevin’s fiancé Lynn (Wynonna Smith) seems to feel the same way. She leaves him, telling him he’s 35 and never going to change.
Kevin watches a bunch of clips of people getting slapped in shows and movies as mobsters kick his door in. Pauly (Paul Ben-Victor) and Joey (Tony Longo), two brothers working for a crime family, want Kevin to pay money he owes them. $5,000 that he borrowed from them has turned into a $50,000 debt with interest and fees, and Kevin tries to get out of his debt with the baseball cards to no avail. Pauly tells Kevin that Happy, the mob boss, is getting pissed, which is not good. They give Kevin one day to come up with the money or they’ll kill him, warning he can’t skip town.
Obviously, Kevin and his hamster are at the airport running off to the Bahamas the next day but Joey and Pauly catch him. Kevin causes a riot by yelling that Denzel Washington is in the airport and makes a run for it in the calamity. He uses Shaq to cause another diversion and notices Gary Young (Phil Hartman) waiting for the arrival of a friend Derek who’s black and he hasn’t seen in twenty-five years with his kids Jason (ole “Squints” Chauncey Leopardi) and Sarah (Talia Seider), so Kevin assumes the identity of Gary’s friend Derek. He meets Gary’s kids and takes some random luggage off the baggage claim to fake the role. When the airport pages Gary, because the real Derek is probably waiting, so Kevin goes in and finds real Derek (Ron Glass), claiming to be his personal assistant and telling him Gary’s wife has botulism and the weekend is off. Great excuse. Kevin gives Derek his hat and tells him not to call and goes back out to Gary’s car. The gifted hat causes Pauly and Joey to hit the real Derek giving Kevin time to get away, as he gets hit with cars. Kevin takes the wheel of Gary’s and they make their shaky escape. Jason is impressed with Kevin’s reckless driving. Also, I will be using Derek and Kevin interchangeably, unless I note I am talking about the real Derek.
Kevin claims he had some kind of shark accident that gave him PTSD which caused him to change and lose a lot of memoires so he has an excuse for not remembering things Derek would know. He has all his bases covered. Gary is excited to rekindle their childhood friendship and Derek is doing his best to play along. Gary asks how Derek’s wife is and Kevin says she’s dead. When Gary says he spoke with her yesterday, he said it was sudden because of the loss of their son, who Gary thought was at Princeton, and Kevin says they “lost him to the Ivy league” so he’s got this covered. Gary thanks Derek for agreeing to do “the thing” today which Kevin has no idea about. He is ushered in to sit on stage with a bunch of stodgy old guys to give a presentation for career day at a high school. Even in his introduction, they give no clue as to what he is supposed to talk about, so Kevin wings it. Because he’s Sinbad, he is also in a colorblocked sweatshirt and Jordans instead of the suit and tie attire of the rest of the dais. He cracks a few jokes as his presentation notes start up, and he runs through a bunch of slides to the delight of the teens in attendance. The school science teacher challenges him and ends up getting roasted. Gary’s oldest daughter Brooke (Kim Murphy) meets Kevin/Derek, and her boyfriend Steve (Kevin Jordan) disrespects Gary but praises Kevin/Derek and Gary notes how Steve is a senator’s son. Kevin still has no idea what job Derek has that he’s supposed to be pretending to be an expert in.
At the Young household, Kevin tries to adapt to Derek’s identity, finding a huge challenge with having to be a vegetarian for three days. Gary’s wife Emily (Kim Greist) meets Kevin/Derek but she’s busy as shit on the phone dealing with the opening of yogurt shops because this is the 90’s. Remember in like 2013 when the current froyo wave started again? Never woulda thought it would last this long, but there’s still like 50 froyo places in my area alone. Kevin is loving the luxury digs he gets to stay in, but he’s still trying to stay on his toes to assume Derek’s personality. The luggage he took from the airport contains funeral home worker clothes, which he wears of course. At a swanky patio party, Gary introduces Kevin/Derek to guests and he does his best to assimilate. He finally finds out he’s supposed to be a dentist and is overjoyed he can finally know what’s supposed to be pretending to be. He’s popular with the guests even though he causes a flood of froyo on a lady. Kevin/Derek fakes his way through a wine tasting, roasting a wine critic and calling himself a xylophone instead of an oenophile. He’s a hit.
Gary and Emily discuss Brooke’s rebellion and the two have a spat because Gary thinks Emily spends too much time on yogurt and Emily thinks Gary is not as secure with himself as Derek is. At Larry’s tattoo shop, Joey and Pauly show up looking for Kevin right as Kevin calls. Larry lies and says it’s his mother on the phone to keep Kevin’s location secret and tells him to be a good HOUSEGUEST HE SAID THE NAME OF THE MOVIE! The ploy works and Pauly and Joey pull guns on Larry which gets them Kevin’s location. Kevin has a feeling Larry gave him up and tries to make a run for it but is stopped by Gary who has prepared a vegetarian breakfast for Kevin/Derek. Gary wants the family to spend free time together but Brooke wants to go be goth in a cemetery which also sounds fun. Gary gifts Derek with a pair of Nikes and says Derek’s been signed up for Sara’s 5K benefit race. Jason drinks Coca Cola at breakfast, in a beautiful kitchen too. What a life.
Kevin tries to make a run for it. He is so fucking happy when he sees a McDonald’s so he can eat some food with meat. Here’s a solid product placement where he orders practically the entire menu, which comes to $10.87. My god, I could have lived like a king back then. You can’t get a Big Mac meal and two apple pies for $10.87 today. Joey and Pauly spot Kevin leaving McDonald’s and mention the establishment by name, but he gets away and tries to board a bus with his pocket change but only has enough money for a half-mile trip. He buys a scratch-off lotto ticket instead and Joey and Pauly spot him and chase him with a car while he runs through yards with his Mickey D’s in tow. He gets away and runs into Gary who makes him hop in the car. He tosses his McDonald’s bag into a playpen and a child enjoys a nice marketable bite of a burger as Pauly and Joey curse his escape.
Gary and Kevin go shopping at the golf pro shop. Gary introduces Derek to some old racist white club members, including his boss, as Pauly and Joey try to gain entry to get proximity to Kevin/Derek. There are a lot of double entendres with the golf balls. Kevin/Derek manages to liven up the golf round while also evading the goons in a golf cart chase. Gary’s boss’s tooth is injured and Derek is brought over to diagnose with real dentist Ron Timmerman (convicted sex offender and piece of shit Jeffery Jones), and they take him in for oral surgery which Kevin/Derek obviously can not perform. He accidentally washes his hand in a tub of Novocain near a sweet ass acrylic brick wall. Timmerman tells Derek that Walter Kraft from his dental school has brought his entire class in to learn from Derek so now Derek has to fake his way through this with numb Novocain hands. Just as you think Timmerman is going to do the work, the students request to see it done by Derek, so this is obviously going to go incredibly. He manages to extract the tooth through antics.
Gary shows Derek his personal reflection spot, where he comes to think quietly with a Big Mac, waving it dreamily in front of Kevin/Derek for some more product placement. Kevin can’t take it anymore and eats a huge bite, saying he still tries to fight off his meat cravings and Gary accepts this and sings their old camp song while Derek/Kevin enjoys a Big Mac and some fries.
Kevin/Derek offers to drive the kids around but notices the goons and has Jason drive the car while he pedals so they can escape, which works out. Kevin helps Jason school some older bullies on the basketball court. It’s called the power of Sinbad, baby. Back at the Young house, Larry calls and Kevin asks him to save him from the suburbs. Kevin/Derek tries to talk to Brooke to shake her out of her obsession with Anne Sexton and Edgar Allan Poe. Brooke breaks down, confessing she is stressed over her parents’ fighting and Steve leaving her for another girl. Kevin/Derek tells her not to put up with Steve’s bullshit and go for someone else and it seems to cheer her up.
Kevin scratches off the ticket he bought and he wins a big jackpot. Gary overhears him narrating his victory as Kevin Franklin and Kevin convinces Gary that Kevin Franklin is a persona he made up, as a man he wants to be. The goons show up at the house looking for Kevin and Sarah takes Joey’s gun as the family Rottweiler attacks them. Kevin/Derek takes the gun from Sarah and says he’s going to rid of it as she asks if his real name is Kevin. He tries to hide the gun in the trash but it goes off and the family all comes downstairs. Kevin tells them it was the TV and they believe him. He leaves under the guise of taking a night jog as Sarah says she’s good at keeping secrets. He meets Larry outside a closed McDonald’s. Larry lectures Kevin about how he’s always a taker and never a giver in any friendship, and as Kevin sees the statue of Poseidon from the beginning he makes a connection. He realizes he has to do his part and participate in the 5K for Sarah, so he must go back. Larry asks him why, even though he just lectured him about never doing his part. Kevin explains what he has to do and Larry agrees to take him back.
It's day 3 and Kevin is still in the same colorblocked hoodie. He runs into Steve out with his new lady and takes him on a drive to put the fear of god in him and McDonald’s gets another product placement. Kevin/Derek goes to find Gary and clues him in on what’s going on with his kids, and also warns him not to take the competing froyo account his boss offered so as not to upset Emily. Gary goes in to talk to Emily and sees his boss in there “checking out the competition” and splats some froyo in his face, then calls him a bigot and a backstabbing buffoon in front of his boss’ mother and then apologizes to Emily. They make up and Gary asks to join Emily’s froyo company. You let Sinbad into your life and good fortune finds you.
Gary and Kevin arrive home and the goons have the family at gunpoint, as well as the real Derek. Timmerman storms in stating Kevin is an imposter and Kevin fesses up. Gary is hurt that he and his family were lied to after welcoming him into their home. Pauly cuts the sentimental moment short and tells Joey to grab Kevin and tells everyone else to forget what they saw. Steve runs inside, he dropped the tough guy act, and begs for Brooke back pretty pathetically as she rejects him. The goons take Kevin as the Young family reflects on all the good that Kevin has done for them. Real Derek fills them in that Kevin is out $50,000 and Gary states that he can cover that if it’s all that stands between “him and his oldest friend,” which Real Derek mocks but I’m with Gary on this.
The goons lose Kevin in the hubbub of the 5K and Kevin joins the race keeping up with Gary. They duck alleys and get some froyo and join a backyard BBQ for some chicken while evading the goons. Over a plate of chicken, Kevin and Gary discuss their predicament as Joey and Pauly show up so Kevin and Gary take off and hold hands in victory as they cross the finish line the winners. Mob boss Happy (Don Brockett) talks to Pauly on the phone as Joey apprehends Gary and Kevin. Kevin offers the million dollar lotto ticket to Pauly to save his ass and it seems they take the offer.
We cut to six months later and Kevin has written a bestselling book on how to be a good houseguest and he’s now rich. Not sure he was the best guest but hey James Frey didn’t do all the million little pieces shit either. Kevin watches a game show where Happy and the goons lose a jackpot and joins in a Christmas party with the Young family and all their social circle, with Gary and Kevin singing Christmas songs about burgers, finalizing this movie’s indoctrination for the love of a sweet beef patty, and that’s our movie.
I love a convenient ending sometimes, so this was a nice resolution and now Gary and Kevin can live out their friendship, which is worth more than a million dollars (but the cash would have been cool too). This one is clearly a product of its time, and also a product of the McDonald’s marketing board, but I love it and I’m sure you will too, the 14% Rotten Tomatoes score be damned. I had to shell out the dough to rent in on Vudu because it is not currently streaming anywhere, but I’d do it again anytime. I’m now going to go grab a Big Mac because product placement works very well on me. It could work on you, too. You might as well just grab some McDonald’s before you hit play to save yourself some time. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.