My review was written in October 1992 after watching the movie at a Midtown Manhattan screening room.
"Breaking the Rules" is a stillborn road movie, way too maudlin to be touching or amusing. On the shelf for over three years, pic emerges as a poor entry in all markets.
Shot as "Sketches" in 1989 and one of since-defunct MCEG's final productions, pic bears all the marks of a TV movie. Yet unlike most other MCEG leftovers (such as the upcoming cable debuter "Chains of Gold"), it gets a lame duck theatrical outing.
Cold storage hasn't helped. Gimmick of three 22-year-old guys from Cleveland trekking to Los Angeles for a final fling is old hat in the extreme.
Judging from a final dedication credit, Paul Shapiro's lame screenplay must have been a personal one for him. Topliner Jason Bateman suffers from leukemia and has a month to live. On the pretext of an engagement party (he has no girlfriend), he gets his boyhood pals Jonathan Silverman and C. Thomas Howell to come home, and then breaks the bad news to them.
Pic gets off on a bad foot when the trio decide to go to Los Angeles to get Bateman a dreamed-of shot on "Jeopardy", a gimmick subsequently well-used to set "White Men Can't Jump" into motion.
Pals pack into a van for uninteresting and unatmospheric adventures (Cleveland and other locales are poorly faked in Sacramento and environs). Film perks up a bit halfway with the entrance of waitress Annie Potts, who sort of adopts the trio.
A dull trip to Reno results in Bateman's whirlwind marriage to Potts, but she elects to sleep with Silverman instead. By the time Bateman expires in Potts' arms in a California motel room in a poorly directed scene, any audience's patience will have been exhausted.
Working very hard, Silverman and Howell constantly upstage Bateman, a bad misstep for what is ostensibly a Bateman vehicle (his dad Kent Bateman co-produced and even appears as his on-screen dad). Potts is endearing though given a paper-thin role. Comedy helmer Neal Israel gets very few laughs for his efforts.
"Breaking the Rules" is a stillborn road movie, way too maudlin to be touching or amusing. On the shelf for over three years, pic emerges as a poor entry in all markets.
Shot as "Sketches" in 1989 and one of since-defunct MCEG's final productions, pic bears all the marks of a TV movie. Yet unlike most other MCEG leftovers (such as the upcoming cable debuter "Chains of Gold"), it gets a lame duck theatrical outing.
Cold storage hasn't helped. Gimmick of three 22-year-old guys from Cleveland trekking to Los Angeles for a final fling is old hat in the extreme.
Judging from a final dedication credit, Paul Shapiro's lame screenplay must have been a personal one for him. Topliner Jason Bateman suffers from leukemia and has a month to live. On the pretext of an engagement party (he has no girlfriend), he gets his boyhood pals Jonathan Silverman and C. Thomas Howell to come home, and then breaks the bad news to them.
Pic gets off on a bad foot when the trio decide to go to Los Angeles to get Bateman a dreamed-of shot on "Jeopardy", a gimmick subsequently well-used to set "White Men Can't Jump" into motion.
Pals pack into a van for uninteresting and unatmospheric adventures (Cleveland and other locales are poorly faked in Sacramento and environs). Film perks up a bit halfway with the entrance of waitress Annie Potts, who sort of adopts the trio.
A dull trip to Reno results in Bateman's whirlwind marriage to Potts, but she elects to sleep with Silverman instead. By the time Bateman expires in Potts' arms in a California motel room in a poorly directed scene, any audience's patience will have been exhausted.
Working very hard, Silverman and Howell constantly upstage Bateman, a bad misstep for what is ostensibly a Bateman vehicle (his dad Kent Bateman co-produced and even appears as his on-screen dad). Potts is endearing though given a paper-thin role. Comedy helmer Neal Israel gets very few laughs for his efforts.