Where to watch Think Big
3 Stars
A teen genius (Ari Meyers) escapes from a teen think tank with the plans for a secret weapon. On the run, she stows aboard a truck driven by two slow-witted brothers (Peter and David Paul) who are transporting toxic waste across the country. Martin Mull also appears as the mentor of the think tank, Claudia Christian is the school’s psychologist, and David Carradine is a repo man.
The Barbarian Brothers are back on screen, propelled by the success of their previous outing, Cannon’s The Barbarians, for video stores across the world. Now, the lumbering twin brothers are cast as a truck-driving duo who are charmingly irresponsible but well-intentioned. Jon Turteltaub, who would go on to direct movies for major studios featuring star vehicles, populates his comedy with interesting character actors to support the weight-lifters-turned-actors who are the leads. Martin Mull, Richard Moll, and Claudia Christian carry large portions of the movie while the story allows the Barbarians to do their schtick and then exit for another five to seven minutes of screen time. But the absolute pleasure of Think Big is in the joyful performance from David Carradine, who is doing a Burt Reynolds’ Smokey impersonation, which is a delight to behold when he briefly pops up sporadically throughout.
The raunchiness of D.C.CAB and the violence of The Barbarians are both noticeably absent from Think Big. There was a deliberate effort by either a producer or agent to target a family audience. Perhaps the report from video store owners was that the kids were renting the duo’s movies, and they figured that if the next flick was rated PG, then it would reach an even larger audience. There is no published evidence that this strategy was successful; in fact, the opposite could be true, as the pair’s next movie was delayed by three years and received a Rated R rating, but Think Big was a staple rental for kids’ slumber parties in the 1980s. The highlight of the brothers’ film career is The Barbarians, but in a close second is Think Big; the rest of their oeuvre is unwatchable.
Directed by: Jon Turteltaub
Written by: Jim Wynorski, R.J. Robertson, Edward Kovach
Starring: Peter Paul, David Paul, Martin Mull