Where to watch Gung Ho
1 1/2 Stars
Hunt Stevenson works for a large car manufacturer that has just been bought out by a Japanese firm. Suddenly finding himself having to justify his own job, he’s forced to choose between redundancy or the seemingly inhuman Japanese work ethic that the new owners have brought with them.
Ron Howard is the filmmaker directly responsible for turning Michael Keaton from a stand-up comedian to a screen comic actor. Then Keaton’s later collaborations with Tim Burton would turn him into a screen icon, with memorable roles in Beetlejuice and Batman (1989). Gung Ho, which hit theaters a few years before Keaton would become a superstar, is a little-mentioned and long-forgotten movie that, until recently, was difficult to track down. This is a snail-paced movie, deadly for a comedy, with a script that doesn’t take a clear stance on the subject presented.
Michael Keaton brings his manic energy to the film, which enlivens when he is onscreen, but the film is stripped down with little music, backing score, or visual design. Gung Ho is Ron Howard’s blandest work, which may explain why he took on the special effects-heavy fantasy film Willow as his follow-up project. The screenplay, from the typically solid writing team of Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandel, is aimed at the level of a standard sitcom television series. Gung Ho is a rare failure from a collection of talented people who would go on to deliver a series of classics in the following decades.
Directed by: Ron Howard
Written by: Edwin Blum, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel
Starring: Michael Keaton, Gedde Watanabe, George Wendt