I don't much like the cartoon Family Guy, which is usually far
too crude and irreverent for my tastes. But now and then I'll watch a
bit of it, and years ago, I happened to catch a random segment that has
stuck with me ever since. The television is tuned in to the news, and
after sharing the headlines, the announcers cut to a preview of the
upcoming movie, a Disney flick starring Don Knotts entitled Too Many Ostriches.
In it, he appears to be at some sort of preserve, and he stands,
abjectly traumatized, amidst dozens of placidly roaming ostriches.
"There's way too many ostriches. Why are there so many ostriches?" he moans. "The brochure said there'd only be a few ostriches! This is a terrible vacation!"
I think of this every time I see Don Knotts in a Disney movie, particularly one involving animals. Gus
is about a mule, not an ostrich, but it is every bit as ridiculous as
that mock movie looks. Knotts plays the coach of the California Atoms, a
pathetic football team that is in the bottom of the NFL. Even their
halftime entertainment isn't up to snuff, so when team owner Hank Cooper
(Ed Asner) hears about Gus, a Yugoslavian mule who can kick a soccer
ball a remarkable distance, he has him flown over to California, along
with Andy Petrovic (Gary Grimes), the teen who discovered his talent.
After Hank's financial backer Charles Gwynn (Harold Gould) coerces
Cooper into wagering ownership of the team on its ability to win the
Superbowl this season, he becomes desperate to up their chances. His
strategy? Let the mule kick field goals.
I absolutely cannot
imagine a real-life circumstance under which it would be considered
acceptable for a mule to stand in for a player even once, let alone week
after week. Then again, most Disney sports movies in the screwball
comedy genre play very fast and loose with established rules. Before you
decide to watch this movie, you need to accept that it's going to come
with a hefty helping of absurdity. Given that Knotts was the one who
drew me into this one, I was hoping a lot of it would come from him, but
he actually has a pretty minor role that doesn't really take advantage
of his comedic genius.
Yes, we get to see a couple of
incredulous expressions from Knotts, but Asner is much more prominent
here. I would certainly call his the most engaging performance of the
movie; he's at his lovably ornery best, launching into tirades at some
times, slyly plotting at others. He and Gould have a great dynamic as
the two men try to undermine each other's efforts - and Charles' tactics
are just as unorthodox as Hank's and considerably more unethical. That
Hank would not involve the police when it's perfectly obvious that
Charles is sabotaging him is a head-scratcher, though I suppose it might
come down to pride. He wants to beat Charles at his own game.
Not
being a football fan, I found the football scenes, of which there were
many, only moderately entertaining. You can only see a mule kick a ball
so many times before the novelty wears off, plus we see a fair amount of
regular game play as well. The pacing of the movie seems off to me,
right from the choppy beginning, which alternates between stationary
credits and regular scenes, with the result that the opening feels
interminable. Several of the scenes in the movie seem to go on far
longer than necessary, particularly one in which Gus leads a pair of
bumbling crooks played by Tim Conway and Tom Bosley on a wild mule chase
through a grocery store. It's funny, but it just seems to stretch on
too long.
While most of the movie is pure comedy, there's a
slightly more serious storyline at play with Andy, a sweet, sheltered
young man whose accomplishments have never been acknowledged by the
parents who fawn over his soccer star brother. His sense of inadequacy
plagues him throughout the movie, particularly after his father suggests
that his job of holding the football for Gus to kick could be done by
anyone. It's easy to latch onto Andy and wish him a sense of fulfillment
as well as a real shot with his dream girl, who is happy to serve as
his tour guide but is in a relationship with a macho member of the
Atoms.
Gus has a great cast, though many of the actors
seem underused. The rivalry between Hank and Charles kept me occupied,
as did Andy's struggle to gain self-confidence. I mostly appreciate Gus
for the subtle ways he encouraged Andy without the young man's
knowledge. Still, the more over-the-top humor is more prevalent. While I
found my attention wandering, several of the purely silly scenes made
me giggle, so while I don't think this is the best of the zany Disney
comedies by a long shot, it's certainly good for a laugh or two.
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