Life Stinks
Watching Mel Brooks’s “Life Stinks” for the first time in 2024 is sobering because, intellectually-speaking, we know how absolutely implausible its premise is. At the beginning of the film, Goddard Bolt is determined to demolish the slums he’s hoping to acquire for something far more profitable and luxurious, but when he bets his rival he can survive on the streets- without a penny to his name- he finds an appreciation for the struggles of life. The idea of any billionaire being moved to act in the best interests of helping someone less fortunate than them in this day and age, where the 1% has an ungodly amount of resources, and homelessness is more likely than ever with rising housing costs, is a level of optimism in the human condition that I cannot really get to now. Sure, some billionaires will act in performative charity, but their success rests on the exploiting the hopes of a living, not actually doing anything to help them. Brooks’s film plays like a fantasy now.
Unlike many of Brooks’s films, “Life Stinks” is not a parody of a genre; while yes, there are elements of Capra in this 92-minute film, it’s a work that feels very genuinely something Brooks wanted to make to get away from the parodies he was known for. That he went right back to parody after this film failed is disheartening, to a certain extent, but I do like that- with this film- he tried to do something different. I wish I could say it was successful, but sadly, it just plays as ridiculous.
Bolt, the CEO who lives for 30 days as if he were homeless (and is played by Brooks), is a good target for Brooks’s sense of humor. He is a successor to Governor Le Petomane in “Blazing Saddles” and President Scroob in “Spaceballs,” a blowhard who only has wealth and power on his mind. How he ends up on the streets is when his rival, Vance Crasswell (Jeffrey Tambor, always good at playing an asshole), wants to buy the same slum area for his own development, and talks Bolt into a bet; if Bolt wins, he gets the property, and Crasswell gets it if Bolt is unable to. When Bolt starts out, he tries to cut corners, but he finds it a little harder than he anticipated. It’s only when he meets some kind hearted people who he connects with, like Sailor (Howard Morris), Fumes (Teddy Wilson), and Molly (Leslie Ann Warren)- the latter whom helps him from a couple of muggers- that he starts to learn how to navigate this life. Meanwhile, Crasswell has plans to renege on the bet that could keep Bolt- who’s taken on the nickname Pepto when he sleeps on a Pepto-Bismol crate- on the streets permanently.
One of the biggest problems with “Life Stinks” in the comedy department is a choice that Brooks- who co-wrote the film with Rudy De Luca (who appears on-screen as a homeless man who thinks he’s J. Paul Getty, in one of the strongest comedic gags in the film) and Steve Haberman- makes to not try and make homeless life appear wacky and eccentric. There’s a degree of sincerity to how he tries to give the homeless more respect than other films would do that is admirable; unfortunately, that makes comedy difficult to come by, not aided by the fact that we can tell Brooks has no respect for people like Bolt in general, and he wants us to laugh at Bolt’s misfortune, making his redemptive arc harder to buy into. That being said, I like the chemistry between Brooks and Warren, and how Molly just kind of runs with him as he’s trying to get his life back as it becomes obvious that Crasswell is trying to screw him over, and there are some great moments he has with Morris and Wilson, as well, including a funeral scene that probably provided the inspiration for a similar moment in “The Big Lebowski”; you’ll know it when you see it.
Overall, I was charmed by “Life Stinks” more than I laughed at it. Brooks’s work just engages me, even if the film doesn’t connect with me the same way his classics do. Because he tries to bring some empathy to the homeless characters, and heaps scorn on the likes of Bolt and Crasswell, he understands where our sympathies will lie. I just wish he had found the comedic sweetspot his better films had.
