David Howard (Brooks) is so confident of a Manhattan ad agency promotion that he orders a loaded Mercedes. He is understandably furious when sidestepped by a lesser “creative.”
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Not settling for a token account, he and his wife Linda (Haggerty) liquidate everything (“we got a free ride on the 1980's inflation train”), buy a Winnebago, and head to Las Vegas to renew their vows. But that night, Linda loses their entire “nest egg” in the casino.
What follows includes Brooks' convoluted logic to try to convince the casino manager (Marshall) to return his money; an uproarious fight atop Hoover Dam; and the stark realization that they must start over in small-town Arizona to survive. While Linda takes a job in a chicken place, David tries to finesse something grander from an employment agent, “surely you've got a special section in there with the $100,000 jobs?” He doesn't. So David accepts work as a crossing guard. In one scene, with stop sign in hand, he wistfully discusses one driver's Mercedes, similar to the one he'd ordered. “What's not to like,” the driver asks.
When David meets Linda's franchise “manager” of about seventeen, the two deadpan about how great she is. “That's why I hired her.” “Well that's why I married her.”
Brooks' wry dialog and one-liners are completely convincing for a couple who's predicament is anything but funny. In the end, they throw pride to the desert wind and take the only avenue available.
The review of this Movie prepared by Angry Jim Magin