Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (November 4, 2024)
From 1928 to 1960, Amos ‘n’ Andy ran as a successful radio show, one that spawned less popular film and television expansions. Due to racist depiction of Black characters, it inspired much protest and remains infamous for these dimensions.
Given that its title offers a provocative evocation of that controversial series, one might expect 1993’s Amos & Andrew to bring a satirical look at race relations. It does, though without the snap it promises.
Andrew Sterling (Samuel L. Jackson) enjoys success as a playwright and uses his earnings to purchase a vacation home in the ritzy New England location of Wautaga Island. When neighbors see a Black man, they assume he must be a crook and call the cops.
After local Police Chief Cecil Tolliver (Dabney Coleman) recognizes this awful mistake, he offers petty criminal Amos Odell (Nicolas Cage) a deal: if he fakes Andrew’s abduction to get the cops off the hook, Tolliver will grant Amos his freedom. Inevitably, this plan goes wrong.
In the opening three minutes of Andy, we see a home in Wautaga Island that sports a lawn jockey with a Black character. The homeowners’ dog immediately urinates on this object.
This scene immediately lets us know Andy will definitely engage in the racial elements implied by its title. In addition, the sequence implies the film will do so in a cheap and tacky manner.
I entertained the notion I shouldn’t judge the intelligence of the movie’s commentary based solely on this one short sequence. When I soon learned that racist whites named their dog “Rommel” after the Nazi general, I figured my initial instincts felt likely to prove correct.
To my relief, most of the rest of Andrew lacks such hamfisted “commentary”. However, it still feels thin and expects its “mismatched buddy comedy” elements to carry the day.
They don’t. Andrew features simplistic stabs at racial domains and lacks the insight it needs to explore these in a satisfying manner.
Really, Andrew simply can’t find much to say beyond its basic conceit and its winking title. The characters even comment on the juxtaposition of their names, a choice that feels as hamfisted as everything else.
Andrew just bites off more than writer/director E. Max Frye can chew. Perhaps the movie needed a Black filmmaker to give it the necessary bite, but whatever the case, Frye lacks the cleverness to give us anything more than simplistic concepts and characters.
Frye did manage to amass a tremendous cast. In addition to Jackson, Cage and Coleman, we find Michael Lerner, Margaret Colin, Loretta Devine, Brad Dourif, Giancarlo Esposito, Tracey Walter and Bob Balaban, among others.
That seems like a radically overqualified group for such a thin script. None of them manage to elevate the project, unfortunately, so this ends up as a disappointing satire.
Footnote: a brief tag scene appears after the end credits conclude.
