Runtime: 83 minutes
Directed by: John Landis
Starring: A wide variety of people, only some of whom I recognized in this sketch comedy film
From: United Film Distribution Company
No! No, not Detroit!
Quite simply, the one time I saw this movie was about 20 years ago. My memories of it were hazy, someone elsewhere referenced the film last year and for months KFM has been on Prime free for me… about time to check out something I recalled as being “fine”. The second time around, the opinion is the same.
KFM is in a sketch comedy format where 32 minutes of the 83 minute production is spent on a blatant Enter the Dragon ripoff called A Fistful of Yen. That sticks out among the rest which is mostly parody of television shows and movies… typically puerile and juvenile yet having comedy which more often than not did make me laugh. It wasn’t just the vulgar moments which inspired chuckles—there were also sight gags, wordplay, puns, and escalating absurdity which also amused me. The spoofs included courtroom drama, blaxploitation, sexploitation, newscasts, commercials and talk shows. The racial humor definitely plays differently now than it did back then.
This ZAZ production isn’t as funny as Airplane or the Naked Gun pictures and indeed some moments are of their time; likewise, this John Landis film (as a human being, I don’t love him but as a director some of his films are worth seeing*) isn’t The Blues Brothers or Coming to America. That said, this was the first ZAZ movie and early in the career of Landis so I shouldn’t complain as this was still good despite how uneven the end product was. After all, what a cast of actors this has, even if they are all in cameo appearances: Donald Sutherland, Bill Bixby (as himself), George Lazenby, Henry Gibson (as himself), Tony Dow, Branscombe Richmond, the Rhee brothers of martial arts fame AND Uschi Digard.
* I need to mention that in the next few days, via popular request on another site I’ll be viewing something else w/ Landis involvement. That is “via popular request”, as I’ll refer to it.
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