Airheads (1994) Movie Drinking Game & Review

Airheads (1994) Movie Drinking Game

Down a Shot: each time Rex flexes his biceps. Hulk Hogan who?

Down a Shot: each time Milo is yanked around by his ponytail

Down a Shot: each time Rex bullies Pip (siblings, amirite?)

By: Vidal D’costa (Three Beers) –

Anarchy ensues when Chazz, a jilted amateur rockstar trying to break into the music industry, and his bandmates take on the system… or rather, childishly and flimsily storm a local radio station, armed with nothing but toy pistols loaded with hot sauce and a whole lot of ambition, prepared to get some airtime for their latest track…. with no backup plan whatsoever!

A Toast

While Airheads initially starts out as a threadbare concept with a plot resembling a bunch of SNL skits cobbled together, it surprisingly shapes up to be a rollickingly fun and altogether radical satire on fan culture and mob mentality, with an in-your-face, snarky take on the police force, too (ACAB and all that, innit?). The movie even feels very reminiscent of later/more current movies such as Pirate Radio/The Boat that Rocked (2009), a personal favourite of mine and yet another charming, moving, and utterly hilarious comedy filmed in a single location featuring an equally talented ensemble playing a range of colourful characters who much like our very vocal but often misguided Airheads also raise havoc and tackle the gatekeeping, hard-headed media moguls and censorship alike, albeit on the high seas.

It also helps that while there isn’t much depth to the premise itself, the characters certainly are much more layered and the high-on-energy cast further adds dollops of heart and sincerity with performances that allow the characters to feel lived in and easily redeemable despite the severity of their ridiculously laughable antics. It is especially refreshing to watch certain cast members play against type, too (barring Adam Sandler’s Water Boy/Pool Boy act, of course)- be it a comically unhinged and rambunctious Steve Buscemi who chews the scenery and left me reeling with major Stockholm Syndrome in his punk rock attire as Rex, the fire-starter bad boy bassist of the grammatically erroneous Lone Rangers, or Judd Nelson turning in a compelling act as Jimmie Wing, the cunning, sweet-talking CEO music executive out to milk the boys in the band and their 15 minutes of fame, especially after winning hearts in his breakout role as high-schooler Bender, the ‘most likely to be a cool cat with a heart of gold’ in the 80’s classic The Breakfast Club a decade earlier.

As lead vocalist Chazz, Brendan Fraser manages to strike a fine balance between a doe-eyed airhead and a go-getter who’s raging against the machine with his agenda of sticking it to the man. Ernie Hudson plays it straight as the patient Sergeant O’Malley who ends up being the only level-headed character in the movie, too. Michael McKean is effortless as the bozo deluxe station manager Milo who is so self-absorbed and obsessed with minting money that he stoops to gimmicks such as betting on Chazz and his bandmates surviving the siege in order to sell some ad time/spots! Joe Mantegna treads a fine line between endearing and exasperated as DJ Ian. And a then up-and-coming SNL alumnus Sandler excels more at the physical comedy gags, especially in a rib-tickling scene wherein the gullible Pip breaks into a random cartoonish jig in a failed attempt to thwart the attention of a cop who shows up at the backdoor of the radio station.

It further benefits from a few memorable guest appearances by known names such as David Arquette playing a ditzy radio jockey and the late Harold Ramis playing an undercover cop who ends up being interrogated via pop quiz in one of the most quotable scenes of the movie. Marshall Bell plays Carl, an over-enthusiastic macho SWAT officer, and his miscommunications occasionally develop into one-sided heart-to-hearts/therapy sessions with Doug (played by a pre-racial tirade Michael Richards, AKA Kramer from Seinfeld), an accountant in hiding at the station whose palms are sweatier than mom’s spaghetti and whom the former mistakes to be a fellow Marine and thus an equal, which also add to more hilarious moments as the movie progresses.

The hijinks of the Lone Rangers and the equally eccentric side characters are themselves amusing and fascinating enough to keep one thoroughly entertained and thus one hardly feels the time fly- with many chuckles elicited from the scenes of siblings Pip and Rex forever at each other’s throats or rough-housing each other like adolescent kids for no reason, but soon after bonding over a potty-mouth Rex teaching his more insecure younger brother the intricacies of a well-crafted death threat, and a robust montage of the bandmates eventually developing a common ground with a like-minded staff who eventually realize they, too, are being screwed over by the higher-ups and even help in ransacking their own workplace, which is both another cool showcase of this cool cast’s chemistry and also harkens back to similar wholesome dance montages featured in anti-establishment movies such as the aforementioned beloved The Breakfast Club.

The movie also boasts of pop culture references and in-jokes galore, with a very obvious spoof of that one popular Christmas movie starring Bruce Willis and even a dig at the scrawny Pip romancing women who are way out of his league that’s akin to a meta-joke since a majority of Adam Sandler’s home productions feature him playing a goofball/man-child opposite supermodel-esque co-stars. Considering the resurgence of Mark Wahlberg’s xenophobia, the jab at Marky Mark also feels very current and on the money. Other amusing and self-aware instances include Chazz bursting into a random Rodney King chant while one of the Black employees at the radio station expresses befuddlement and Pip going out of his way to ensure the hostages that he is a ‘white ally’, leading to mixed reactions. Lastly, the visual gags of Rex using a fire extinguisher (even more so meta since Buscemi served as a firefighter in the NYPD fire department) to smoke out Doug from his hiding place elicited the most laughter out of me.

And thanks to this movie, I also now know that there’s a book adaptation of the movie Moby Dick.

Beer Two

Amy Locane’s subplot of Chazz’s hot-headed and abusive girlfriend Kayla felt forced and honestly her arc and the on-and-off toxic relationship just makes for plain uncomfortable viewing.

Beer Three

Some of the 90s lingo, particularly the presence of a few ‘R’ words, haven’t aged too well.

Verdict

While it does show its age at times primarily due to the advent of major online streaming platforms such as Spotify where it’s easier for budding indie bands to find an audience or even get a foot in the door, Airheads is overall still worth a watch either as an entertaining guilty pleasure if you’ve time to kill or even for its social commentary on changing times, the universal nature of rock/music in general, as well as the need for individuality to bring about radical change and working on one’s passions despite the naysayers. With radio stations not being a mainstay as they once were, this is one cult classic that also acts as a reminder of a cool and hip past, albeit not an entirely rose-tinted/romanticized one either. Caution: It might awaken the inner radio rebel in you!