fran-ohmsford-417-318109 A truly lightweight 1970s comedy that just happened to be released in 1980. Stir Crazy raises numerous smiles and provokes not a few cringes but laughs are few and far between in this meh prison caper. Many characters appeared and disappeared and reappeared just to service the paper-thin plot with no attempt to show how or why anything was really happening or indeed how the lawyer's female friend knew things she couldn't possibly have known having not been privy to those conversations. The love story is totally phoned-in and completely unbelievable whilst being pretty much unnecessary to the actual plot. Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are given nothing to work with here and Wilder in particular resorts to manic at every opportunity with Pryor seemingly forced to follow suit. Again things just happen with no build-up seemingly just to get us to the end of the film! Stir Crazy is an unremarkable "comedy" that plays it safe from start to finish but forgets to actually provide a competent plot. 3/10 - Not worth watching except if you're bored and feel like an inane "comedy" with lots of smiles but few actual laughs.

slightlymad22 As it was a movie I enjoyed watching as a kid with my dad and brothers, when I start the Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor comedy "Stir Crazy" was on TV, I couldn't wait to watch it and have s couple of laughs and reminisce about great times.Plot In As Paragraph: New Yorkers, Skip (Genr Wilder) and Harry (Richard Pryor) are best friends who are both fired on the same day. Fed up with life in the Big Apple, they head out to Hollywood, But in the way they are framed for a bank robbery, and end up in a western prison. They have difficulty adjusting to the new life until the warden finds that Skip has a natural talent for bull riding with the prison rodeo coming up.Wilder and Pryor are a great comedy duo, and still make me laugh even though I have seen it multiple times. Barry Corbin, Craig T Nelson, Erland Van Lidth, Georg Stanford Brown, and Miguel Angel Suarez all offer great support, whilst Tony Burton (Tony Duke from the all the Rocky movies) has a small role, credited as "The guy who punched mean" his Rocky co star Al Salvani is also here credited as "Inmate". Jobeth Williams looks great as a brunette. As a side note, Gene Wilder should not sing!!

FilmBuff1994 Stir Crazy is a good movie,its enjoyable and its not a waste of time but if your opinion is a lot like mine you would probably feel like something was missing,especially for the fact that they got actors as good as Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.Two best friends (Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder) leave there home town to meet lovely women,and get a part time job as two singing birds,but two criminals take the bird costumes and rob a bank in the costumes,which makes the two men framed to be the criminals and they get sent to prison and plan to make an escape at the prison rodeo. -DILLON HARRIS

Paul Andrews Stir Crazy starts in New York City as best friends Skip Donahue (Gene Wilder) & Harry Monroe (Richard Pryor) are both fired from their jobs on the same afternoon, drowning their sorrows in a local bar Skip tells Harry that he is fed up with New York & convinces his friend that they should set off on a road trip across the US to Hollywood to find their fame & fortune. Harry agrees but their old van breaks down in a small town called Glenboro, needing money to pay for the repairs Skip & Harry are hired by a bank to sing a song dressed as Woodpeckers. Two local crooks steal the Woodpecker costumes & rob the bank for which Skip & Harry are blamed, they go before a judge, found guilty & sentenced to one hundred & twenty five years each behind bars in state prison. Both Skip & Harry are unprepared for the harsh reality of prison & decide to use the upcoming rodeo to escape...Directed by Sidney Poitier this is the sort of film that you will get & roll around on the floor laughing or find crude & unfunny, comedy like so much else is subjective & what makes one person laugh will not necessarily make the guy sitting next to him laugh so when I say that I thought Stir Crazy was often quite hilarious it's only my own personal opinion as I know quite rightly the person I was standing next to in the que at the bus stop may not. Simple. I won't say that you will find Stir Crazy as funny as I did but I think you would need to be pretty devoid of emotion not to find at least some of it amusing & as I said I think it's often outright hilarious. The film starts off almost entirely as a showcase for the comedic pairing of Wilder & Pryor with some terrific scenes including the Woodpecker dance, the 'I'm bad' scene in jail, some priceless one-liners & reactions to the general likability of the two leads as they turn the material into gold. However once the rodeo aspect & jail break angle kicks in during the second half of the film the comedy seems to take a back seat as gambling, cheating & an odd jail break (why did Harry have to go back into the rodeo? Why couldn't Rory & Jesus climb up the shaft & into the popcorn thing like Harry & Skip do?) take center stage. Also the ending is a little silly & unsatisfying in it's attempt to finish as quickly as possible, sure Harry & Skip have been acquitted but that still leaves the fact they broke out of jail & helped two other convicted criminals including a murderer to escape too. While I am poking holes in the plot would a lawyer's niece really get a job in a topless bar just on the off chance she might see a guy with a particular tattoo? Now that's going above & beyond the call of duty, unless of course she needed the extra money as well.Shot in a real Arizona prison this has good production values & is well made for what it is although there's no real action apart from some rodeo footage of horses & bulls thrashing around. While there is plenty of bad language & profanity there's no violence to speak of. Apparently Richard Pryor refused to wear the Woodpecker suit while filming but strangely did wear for the poster & promotional materials.Apparently a big success at the time even though the critics generally hated it, some of the country & western style music & songs are a little nerve grating & distracting but nothing too major. The acting is good, Wilder & Pryor in particular are brilliant here as a pairing & it's said a lot of scenes were improvised between the two. Even though their character's never meet in Stir Crazy both JoBeth Williams & Craig T. Nelson went on to star in the excellent Poltergeist (1982) a couple of years later.Stir Crazy is a film that I found extremely funny, Wilder & Pryor are on top form & while the logistic's of the story seem to have been shoved to one side Stir Crazy is just a film to be enjoyed & not taken too seriously.