“You look like a pimp at a slumber party.”

Justin’s rating: This takes me back to the era of camping with huge, heavy canvas tents that look as though they belong in M*A*S*H

Justin’s review: Like many of you, I assume, I did a stint in the Scouts as a kid. I didn’t particularly love it, I didn’t hate it, but I bailed before I got to Eagle Scout. I also didn’t take forward a lot of useful life lessons from it, other than puzzlement as to why adults were really into pinewood derby racing.

Turns out that my general cluelessness is not unique, because the gang in The Wrong Guys didn’t learn much from their experience in the Cub Scouts either. While the Scouts brought them together as kids, it didn’t keep them together or make them into astounding citizens or even teach them useful skills.

However, hapless Louie (Louie Anderson) figures that it’s high time for a reunion, so he calls the gang back together for a camping trip in the hopes of finally getting a prestigious badge that they missed from childhood. The five friends are rounded out by nervous wreck and human mullet Richard (Richard Lewis, Robin Hood: Men in Tights), ladies man Belz (Law & Order’s Richard Belzer), slick DJ Franklyn (Franklyn Ajaye, The ‘Burbs), and surfer dude Tim (Tim Thomerson, Trancers). Yeah, I can’t wrap my head around Tim Thomerson playing a surfer either, but there you go.

As you might have noticed, all of these characters use their real names, which is because The Wrong Guys was attempting to be a cinematic launching platform for five stand-up comedians whose fame was tied to those names. I’m not as aware of Anderson and Ajaye and never once thought that Belzer and Thomerson were comedians, but it doesn’t matter. The Wrong Guys was a hard flop and not much of a legacy for any of them.

Anyway, this camping trip is not destined to go well. The five retained none of the Cub Scout survival skills, their childhood bullies (including legacy character actor Brion James!) show up to torment them, and John Goodman and Ernie Hudson introduce some complexity as robbers on the lam. There’s also a rascally squirrel.

It’s a silly and likable enough film, but the obvious problem is that each of these five comedians think that they’re the lead and try to mug for the camera as much as possible. Richard Lewis’ continual frantic monologue is the worst offender, but they’re all guilty of it. When Anderson looked right at the camera after a bad joke, I rolled my eyes pretty hard.

Yet I’m an absolute sucker for a camping comedy as long as it’s halfway decent. Give me Bushwacked, Troop Beverly Hills, or Without a Paddle, and I’m happy to get my outdoors time without a danger of bird poop or grizzly bear assault or the inevitable trip over the waterfall.

Various escapades fill up the runtime — setting up camp, visiting a woman’s retreat, finding a stolen engine, recruiting the bullies into the troop, falling down a hill — but not quite as many as you may think. There is a lot of gunplay (and even a rocket launcher) of the sort that was common in ’80s movies. You know, “guns are fun toys that should be fired as much as possible.” Overall, this really does have the feeling of a leisurely kids movie that’s kind of, sort of more for adults.

With a lot of slapstick, broad characterization, scenes that awkwardly stumble into each other, and John Goodman shooting up the joint, The Wrong Guys is a little too scattered to grow into some sort of forgotten classic. Rather, it’s an amusing distraction, especially if you wanted to see that Law & Order guy in an outfit that looks like a revealing banana peel.

Intermission!

• Den 7 – Owl Patrol
• A dollar can bait a nice trap
• “I was greedy, I deserved to have my head explode!”
• That’s one nice cul-de-sac time fade
• Fashion in the ’80s was all about crazy accessories
• “Out of sight, Velveeta!”
• Richard’s mullet is truly wild and uncontrolled
• “Did we have the same childhood? We got lost!”
• “Do you sell moose repellent?”
• $1.03 for gas, those were the days
• That Texas waffle looks tasty
• All the restaurant people slamming their heads down on their dishes
• “Duke! The pancake!”
• “I’m in a death camp with Daniel Boone.”
• Clarinet by campfire
• The Cub Scouts had a firing squad
• “What kind of car is this?”
• This camping site has very few trees, I want to point out. Are they in the Badlands?
• Why can’t Louie just, y’know, walk up a hill instead of having to be pulled up?
• You can surf right down a waterfall
• “You can run, you can hide, but you’re never gonna leave this mountain alive!”
• Moms ex machina
• Is that one mom the mother of the bad guys from Goonies?