recommended

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

... almost as long as the main characters were frozen. When this movie was released in 1991, I was fifteen. It caught my attention, but not my friends', and consequently, other movies were chosen for matinees. Late for Dinner slipped by, but never fell off my radar. I rarely rented VHS movies. Since the advent of DVD, I've become a voracious collector. I've had the DVD in my sights since 2011, but kept waiting for the price to drop to finally check out this film. When the Blu-ray was announced this year, I said screw it, it won't get any better than this, and bought it instantly. I finally watched Late for Dinner tonight after keeping it in the back of my mind for a quarter century.My story doesn't have a happy ending.I can understand why it didn't make a splash, and perhaps why it's W.D. Richter's second and (to date) final film.It just doesn't work. At all.The direction is amateurish, and it has some of the clumsiest acting I've seen in a major studio release. I attribute this criticism to the two male leads. Berg's performance is unconvincing, although I blame the script and Richter's choices first over the actor. Brian Wimmer, however, is woefully miscast. A different actor might have raised this material. The final scenes between Willie and Joy are the best example: The dude just murders it. It is utterly incompatible with his style. I actually think this scene could have saved the movie for me, if delivered with nuance and gravitas, but there is none. Clearly the man is a paid actor because he's talented, but sometimes casting the right person can make or break a production.Had I seen Late for Dinner in 1991, would I have had a more favorable reaction? To be fair, I think so. The SNL sketch deep freeze plot might have seemed more cutting edge to me as a tenth grader. Still, the cryogenic company and its personnel are completely done away with as soon as Frank and Willie drive away from the complex. The sci-fi element is required for the story, but it's totally a square peg. The movie is unbalanced, no matter what decade I saw it in.Anyway... that's my two cents. Glad I finally saw it.

I've not seen this for several years, and I hope I'm not exaggerating this recollection, but there is one thing about this film that you might find interesting: one of the main characters is portrayed as mentally challenged. ("Mildly retarded" is an old fashioned way to put it.) Throughout, he is treated as a 'person', rather than a 'problem'. This character is done so well, and with such grace - and the manner in which he is treated by the other characters is so decent - that I would recommend seeing the movie if only for that. Otherwise, I remember it as a quirky, pleasant movie... the kind that you feel good about afterward, and were pleased to have spent some time with.

This is the kind of movie you can spend wrapped in your other half's arms and enjoy. Too bad it has not been released in DVD.Watching a land tycoon try to ruin the life of a hard working man that is put out of work makes you think this is what can happen in the real world. What a way to get over on people and think because you have money and power you can do what you want. Going through what they went through with loosing many years of life and having the determination to get what is left back, makes you love this movie for what is worth. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will make you care for other people close to you. This movie was put in my top 10 without even trying. The cast could not have been better. The way you feel about them by the end of this event will make you watch this movie every time you feel the need.

I just recently saw this film and enjoyed it thoroughly. It was not what I had expected. So many of the "freeze 'em" films take a comic or campy approach. But this film tries to deal with the actual problems that could arise if a person were able to disappear and then reappear some 30 years later. A nice treatment of the question.