Renaissance Man (1994)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Penny Marshall

Writer (WGA):

Jim Burnstein (written by)

Release Date:

3 June 1994 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

One Man's Mission To Teach The Few, The Proud... The Impossible!

Plot:

Danny DeVito plays an advertising man who is slowly sliding downhill. When he is fired from his job in Detroit...

Plot Keywords:

Advertising | Army | Teaching | Captain | Shakespeare's Henry V

Cast

Danny DeVito	...	Bill Rago
Gregory Hines	...	Sergeant Cass
James Remar	...	Captain Tom Murdoch
Ed Begley Jr.	...	Jack Markin
Lillo Brancato	...	Pvt. Donnie Benitez (as Lillo Brancato Jr.)
Stacey Dash	...	Pvt. Miranda Myers
Kadeem Hardison	...	Pvt. Jamaal Montgomery
Richard T. Jones	...	Pvt. Jackson Leroy
Khalil Kain	...	Pvt. Roosevelt Nathaniel Hobbs
Peter Simmons	...	Pvt. Brian Davis, Jr.
Gregory Sporleder	...	Pvt. Melvin (as Greg Sporleder)
Mark Wahlberg	...	Pvt. Tommy Lee Haywood
Cliff Robertson	...	Colonel James
Ben Wright	...	Private Oswald
Ann Cusack	...	Bill's Secretary

Also Known As:

Army Intelligence
By the Book

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:L | South Korea:12 | Philippines:G | Australia:M | France:U | Germany:6 | Norway:11 | Spain:T | Sweden:7 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Detroit, Michigan, USA

Company:

Cinergi Pictures Entertainment

Trivia:

In the barracks, Lillo Brancato's character reenacts a scene from Raging Bull (1980) starring Robert De Niro. Brancato's impression of De Niro for a talent scout one year earlier landed him his breakthrough role in De Niro's film A Bronx Tale (1993).

Goofs:

Continuity: When Hobbs is being handcuffed we see one arm being cuffed. A close-up shows the same arm being cuffed again, then wide shot shows both cuffed.

Quotes:

Melvin: I ain't never gonna hit my kids.

Movie Connections:

References Rocky (1976)

Soundtrack:

HAMLET RAP

It just leaves me warm and shiny.

It really does, I'm not here to sell this movie to anyone because sometimes you acknowledge that a film can hit a spot of your own personal psyche, yet at the same time be a million miles away from someone else's. Renaissance Man is one such film, it was one dark rainy night back in the mid 90s and I had the blues, I popped over to the video store to see what was available, I couldn't find anything that remotely sounded like something to lift me out of the stupor I was in. I then spied a copy of Renaissance Man, a film I hadn't heard anything about, and although I took that as a bad sign, Danny DeVito's beaming smile on the cover of the box lured me in. I was thinking how much I had enjoyed him in Twins at the back end of 1988, so to me it didn't seem such a bad gamble to take. I was expecting a comedy and I got one, but what I also got was a very uplifting tale about the human condition, people learning from each other, a tale that shows the power of artistry and how it can unite and lift people, a tale that shows that maybe some folk aren't as clever as others, but if they can grasp a straw and be all that they can be, then their heads will be well and truly held up high.

Renaissance Man, a sadly undervalued film on this particular site, but hey,! we all got different psyche's right? 7/10