The Squeeze

After his triumphant comeback in 2014's Birdman, Michael Keaton has constantly been working. He even has a new film out this weekend, American Assassin. Keaton has always been one of my favorite actors to watch. I even sat through Herbie Fully Loadad just because he was in it. I'm glad to see him getting a lot of high profile, Oscar calibur gigs, but I'll admit I'm a huge fan of his early comedies. I will be more likely to watch Beetlejuice for the 167th time over something like American Assassin. But even back when he was just focusing on making us laugh there were a few flops that didn't reach the heights of Beetlejuice and Night Shift. One of those was 1987's The Squeeze.

Keaton plays an artist who receives a mysterious package from his ex wife that gets him in deep with the mob and the police. It turns out that this package can rig the lottery drawings. Keaton turns to a skip tracer, Rae Dawn Chong, who has been tracking him down for help.

I kind of like this movie, but I will say that if someone other than Keaton had starred it could have been a real snooze fest. His manic performance elevates the ho hum script.Keaton is not the only one who turns in a good performance. Meatloaf pops up in a creepy role as a sweaty, mob tough guy. Chong is wasted however in a thankless, girlfriend role.

Supposedly there was a re edited version that popped up on Amazon a few years back that was better received, but I've only seen the theatrical release. I'd love to see a dvd or blu ray release with both versions, but sadly neither version has made it's way to these formats.

The Squeeze isn't a horrible movie, but I'd probably only recommend it to Keaton fans.