Great cast of TV-comedy hams can't save this one, a dud written and directed by Tom Ropelewski--it resembles an unsold television pilot sans laugh-track. Married couple John Larroquette and Kirstie Alley are dismayed to find their home overtaken (and positively trashed) by an eccentric assortment of witless relatives and obnoxious friends. Ropelewski apparently didn't learn a cardinal rule of the movie makers' handbook: wild party sequences are rarely ever funny on the screen (and this picture is ninety percent brawling). Too bad; Larroquette and Alley make a potentially funny couple, and dryly disengaged Alison La Placa has a wicked gleam in her eyes (you keep expecting her to say something hilarious until the anticipation itself becomes funny). * from ****
Review of Madhouse
