The Big Kahuna

This is a hugely overlooked film.  It’s mis-marketed as a comedy.  Yes, it has amusing parts, but it’s primarily a deep and pithy exploration of the human condition–in particular, exploring what it means to have character.  It explores hypocrisy and the difference between being a person and being a polemic.  It explores youth versus age.  It explores the difference between virtue-signaling and living an authentic and honest existence. 

It has some of the most insightful lines I’ve ever heard in a movie, and they’re delivered beautifully by Kevin Spacey (Larry Mann) and Danny DeVito (Phil Cooper).  (Peter Facinelli [Bob Walker] is mostly a foil for their comments.)

Here’s a conversation between Phil and Bob:

Phil: We were talking before about character. You were asking me about character. We were speaking of faces, but the question is much deeper than that. The question is do you have any character at all? And if you want my honest opinion, Bob, you do not, for the simple reason that you don’t regret anything yet.

Bob: You’re saying I won’t have any character unless I do something I regret?

Phil: No, Bob. I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret. You just don’t know what they are. It’s when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you’ve done and you wish that you had it to do over, but you know you can’t because it’s too late. So you pick that thing up and you carry it with you to remind you that life goes on, the world will spin without you, you really don’t matter in the end. Then you will attain character because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself all across your face. Until that day, however, you cannot expect to go beyond a certain point.

This is an intimate little film.  With really only three actors, it feels more like a stage play than a Hollywood film.  (It is, in fact, based on a play called “Hospitality Suite”.)

It’s really great.