Joe's Apartment

Yesterday we lost the talented actor Robert Vaughn. Like a lot of his contemporaries, Leslie Nielson, Robert Stack, and Lloyd Bridges, just to name a few, the serious actor Vaughn seemed to find a second calling later in his career in comedic films. Usually playing the heavy in funny films like BASEketball and Pootie Tang, Vaughn was able to find a whole new audience of fans. One of those comedies that seems to get overlooked however is 1996's Joe's Apartment.

A fresh out of college slob named Joe, Jerry O'Connell, moves to the big apple thinking that he will land the perfect job and apartment. Things couldn't be further from the truth, so Joe pretends to be the relative of a recently deceased lady so he can take over her rent controlled pad. Unfortunately the place is over ran with an army of singing and dancing cockroaches. Joe does everything he can to rid the place of them, but when he learns that a Senator, Vaughn, and a land developer, Hawaiian musical legend Don Ho, have plans to level the apartment complex, Joe teams up with the pests to save their home.

Based on a short film that made the rounds on MTV back in the early 90's, Joe's Apartment was the first film distributed by the music channel. And it has that fun feel that the station once had. I'm not a huge fan of O'Connell's. I think he is kind of obnoxious. But it kind of works in this film. Both Vaughn, whose character is a secreted cross dresser, and Ho seem to have a blast playing against type. The film also has Megan Ward as O'Connell's love interest, and she is quite good. She was kind of a go to girl for these kinds of movies back then. She also played love interests in Encino Man, P.C.U., and Freaked.

Joe's Apartment is sometimes gross, but also a lot of fun.

It's available on dvd.