Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

I saw this movie when it came out in 1979. I went to see it because I loved Peter Falk and Alan Arkin and Arthur Penn. But I found that the movie tried way too hard to get laughs and the script was seriously lacking. At best, it is amusing but not really funny.

I do not want to be too harsh because perhaps when this movie was filmed some scenes that are too familiar in today's American movies were somehow original, but even so I believe that by 1979 it was quite common to see American movies with cars chasing each other and so on. But leaving that aside, it is quite difficult to swallow that an educated dentist would accept leaving his office in the middle of an intervention to make a favour to a guy that he hardly knew. And this is how all begins. So, the script has an original sin... Nevertheless, there are some good gags and a very good performance by Alan Arkin. And of course, the usual display of utter ignorance of Americans about the culture of the other American countries. For instance to make the Hondureans speak Spanish as if they were Mexicans.

25 years before Robert DeNiro terrorized Ben Stiller in "Meet the Parents" and its two sequels, it was the bride's father terrorized here, ironically by the groom's papa, and he loves it! At first bride papa Alan Arkin thinks groom papa Peter Falk is a lunatic, but the adventure Arkin ends up on wakes him up and brings out his adventurous side, having lacked it in his life as a Manhattan dentist. Falk is involved in a bizarre plot involving the American treasury and a few South American countries, one of them who has a truly wacky dictator (Richard Libertini). From a shoot-out in mid-day midtown Manhattan to a sudden trip to Libertini's country, Arkin and Falk not only risk missing the wedding but their lives as well, desperate to get back in time to give the bride and groom a wedding day that they will never forget.Fast-moving, funny, adventurous, and a definite crowd pleaser, this variation of the "Silver Streak" theme (two opposites paired together in some bizarre caper) is perfectly cast with the dead-pan Arkin not quite so staid but in need of some zest in his life, and Falk a fun-loving lunatic with bizarre qualities of his own who brings Arkin out of his shell. Libertini, the dictator with a "Senor Wences" like hand puppet, has his Spanish speaking army singing American ditties while having a business lunch. TV and Broadway favorite Nancy Dussault ("Too Close For Comfort") has some nice moments as Arkin's suburban wife.A chase through Manhattan is worth seeing just for visions of how the city has (and has not) changed over the past 30 years. Having seen this in the theatre back in 1979, I had remembered the chemistry between Falk and Arkin, which hasn't depleted, and its bouncy musical theme, one which out of nowhere would pop into my head over the years even though I hadn't seen it since then.

This is a movie that definitely has its moments. I have to give credit to Peter Falk, who put on a very strong performance as Vince Ricardo, a CIA agent whose son is getting married to the daughter of a pretty straight-laced dentist (Dr. Kornpett - Alan Arkin) who has trouble dealing with his future in-law's apparent eccentricities but ends up on a mission with him in Central America. The car chase scene is one of the better car chases I can remember in a movie, and the scene when Ricardo and Kornpett end up in front of the firing squad is worth a few laughs. I did think that Arkin came across as a bit too low-key in this movie (although he also had his moments) and to me the movie really weakened once they arrived in Central America and began to deal with a truly bizarre (to the point of being unbelievable) general (Richard Libertini) who has come up with a plan to print all the US currency he could possibly ever want.It's largely fun to watch this, although to be honest I thought this was one of the few occasions when I would say that the remake (the really over the top 2003 version with Michael Douglas in Falk's role) was actually both stronger and funnier than the original. Still, there's nothing particularly wrong with this. It's a fun movie that will keep you entertained. 6/10