Airheads (1994)

Movie Info

Sacrificing myself for my music!

The Lone Rangers are going nowhere.  Chazz Darby (Brendan Fraser) spends his days arguing with his girlfriend Kayla (Amy Locane), Rex (Steve Buscemi) works in a toy store, and Pip (Adam Sandler) cleans pools.  When they get the idea to break into a radio station to force them to play their demo, a hostage situation breaks out…and The Lone Rangers are about to become known in a big way.

Directed by Michael Lehmann, Airheads was released to negative reviews.  The Lone Rangers song “Degenerated” is a song by ’80s band Reagan Youth.

The cast of Airheads was just taking off when the movie came out.  Steve Buscemi was already making waves in art pictures, Brendan Fraser did Encino Man, and Adam Sandler was on SNL.  Despite the up-and-comers, Airheads was a dud.

Proof Adam Sandler should never make an action movie.

The movie uses a bit of the 9-to-5 theme combined with Dog Day Afternoon.  The comedy is loaded with lame jokes and predictable twists.  You know where the story is going and you know where it is going to end up.  It is a matter of how it gets there, and it doesn’t take a very original route.

The cast is pretty good thought it isn’t utilized well.  Both Fraser and Sandler coast through their roles and really don’t bring anything new to characters.  Buscemi was fresh at this point and brings his energy with his role.  The movie has lots of good supporting roles and cameos.  Joe Mantegna plays the DJ and Michael McKean plays the sleazy station manager.  Judd Nelson is radio exec and David Arquette has an early role.  Michael Richards bumbles around the building as a wannabe John McClane with Chris Farley as a police officer, and Ghostbusters vets Ernie Hudson and Harold Ramis also stop by among others.

Thankfully, we won’t be back for a sequel…who knows in the world of lame sequels.

The movie is very ’90s.  The looks and the styles scream the period in which the movie was made.  That could be some fun for viewers, but the movie really doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from the multitudes of other comedies that were coming out at the time.

Airheads is a generic ’90s comedy with the laughs few and far between.  I didn’t expect much from Airheads and I didn’t get much from it.  The movie was frequently aired throughout the ’90s and ’00s on cable and though it hasn’t aged badly, it wasn’t very good to begin with…skip it and stick with classier movies like 9-to-5 or Dog Day Afternoon…they get the formula right.