Excellent, a Must See

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Maybe I'm a sucker being a Don Ameche fan, but, I completely enjoyed the flick. It was light, great entertainment. There was no message or hidden meanings, nothing that is going to be compared to Citizen Kane or The Godfather. It's fun seeing William H. Macy in an early role. It's fun seeing Joe Mantegna in a role he perfectly fits into. I had a smile on my face at the end of the movie. That is a winner in my book.No big twists in the movie, it pretty much turns out as you expect it to. But, if you don't have a great liking, if not a love, for Don Ameche's character by the end of the movie, then you probably hate Frank Capra movies, also.

Most of us come from families who came from the old country with practically nothing. Naturally, our grandparents worked from dawn to dusk to survive in the new land and make a better life for the kids. It was the generations that followed that caught the American disease of wanting to become a "somebody" as a substitute for the integrity of the Old World that was left behind. The paradox of this film, the paradox of achieving "the American Dream", of "building this great nation" is that after all the generations of struggle for position, money, and importance, we wake up and realize that it's all empty, that simple integrity and friendship are all that mean anything, that our fore-fathers had that in the beginning.It has been said that in order to save one's life one must loose it....

There are several goofs in this film, but none are listed in the IMDb page for this film.Most glaring is the set of scenes that involve the escape from Lake Tahoe in the hot-wired car. At the gas station, when it is obvious to the gas station owner that the two men have no money, the owner reaches in a grabs the keys, to prevent them from escaping. Where did the keys come from? They hot-wired the car, remember?Another goof is one that is pervasive in most films from this era. The "quarter in the phone" sound-effect noise of the change being dropped into the phone. Fortress phones (single-slot models) never were equipped with bells to signal insertion of the money. And why did he need to use his magic quarter to make a collect call?

I loved this picture. Mantegna and Ameche are so opposite and I really can't share the view of other people that Ameche is performing a "Being There." Ameche is much smarter, he realizes from the start something is wrong. First he declines the offer but he knows perfectly well these people will shoot him (remember the scene with the smoking lady). Then, the movie starts, and he's in charge, and he keeps in charge, he accepts a luncheon with a Don in LA., he finds money to get back to Chicago, he uses his coin to call the Las Vegas mob.Nice, entertaining, two and a half stars. I laughed quite a bit. Must be my Italian roots.