Quigley [2003]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

We started off our Christmas Eve Bad Movie Night by watching a lawyer talk about the failures and successes in the representation of a courtroom in "Miracle on 34th Street" and by rewatching "Rapsittie Kids Believe In Santa." This was a bad idea because both of these things were vastly more enjoyable than our main feature, a family movie with a sneaky Christian undertone called "Quigley." On paper this movie seems like a win. It stars Gary Busey's teeth as a Pomeranian. It was made in 2003 but looks like it was made in 1993. It has conflicting morals that ultimately have all roads leading to Jesus. But also, it went on forever in the name of being a full hour and a half. Whether or not it's worth your time is heavily dependent on how much joy you get from Gary Busey so the opinions of the movie varied slightly among the BMN members.

"Quigley" starts off by introducing Gary Busey's character who hates dogs and the feelings of others and basically everything except making money at his video game company, weird antiquity influenced art, and the "virtual reality CD ROM." He dies in a car crash when he swerves around a dog and a bunch of angels in cheap curtains tell him he has the option of going to heaven if he returns to Earth in the body of the dog and does some good deeds. He reluctantly agrees and is assigned a guardian angel who falls down a lot and changes his outfit to something new and eccentric every five minutes (most frequently he looks like a really out of touch youth pastor). First Garigley returns to his company to destory an incriminating disk and somehow causes the guy who has taken over the company to fall in love with his secretary. Then Garigley must go to the home of his estranged brother and fix his family's lives somehow. It turns out his brother also develops video games, of the kid friendly variety, but has never sold them anywhere so Garigley steals the disk of one and brings it to his former company where they offer the brother a half a million dollars to work for them. Everyone is happy! But the angels tell Gary Busey that his good deeds don't matter because he doesn't have faith. Then he wakes up in the hospital and it turns out the whole thing was a dream. His life changed, he sets out to make amends with his brother and sell his video game concept again.

The best parts of this movie were any time Gary Busey was on screen. Since only the guardian angel could see that he was really a human, it was only through his eyes that we saw Gary and not the dog but oh, every time he looked like he had just eaten the entire medicine cabinet and it was great. Otherwise, the film dragged a lot. There were a ton of kid hijinks like Garigley getting thrown in the pound, an odd German janitor ranting, and Garigley's niece disappearing and him having to find her, but you would get a good laugh interspersed between these moments. 

I can't say I'd recommend watching it, but it wouldn't be the worst night ever. Either way, you're better off with "Rapsittie Kids Believe in Santa," a genuine Christmas classic.

Spoon Rating: 4