Nothing But Trouble: It's Actually A Lot of Trouble

This screening was part of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Weird Wednesday series. For upcoming shows, click here.

There’s zero debate that Dan Aykroyd is an icon. From his time on SNL, to The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters, Dan’s performances and writing were influential to many comedians who came after. This doesn’t change the fact that Akroyd is a bit eccentric and his humor can be unconventional. The studio gave Dan complete creative control of Nothing but Trouble and it would have benefitted from being reigned in and more focused. With a stellar cast including Chevy Chase, Akroyd himself, John Candy and Demi Moore and a generous budget, Nothing but Trouble had the makings to be a blockbuster hit. 

In the introduction, Bryan Connolly, a local Austin filmmaker and film enthusiast, gave a lot of insight into why the movie is that way. Previous drafts for The Blues Brothers were hundreds of pages long and Akroyd’s original Ghostbusters script would cost “hundreds of millions to make.” He was inspired by Hellraiser to make this doozy of a film, even though that was a horror movie and this is a comedy. The film cost 45 million dollars to make in the early 1990s (the equivalent of 110 million in 2025) yet only made around 8 million at the box office. Nothing but Trouble totally bombed. Connolly also used many interesting words to describe the film including “not for public consumption” and “fucking gross.” Connolly lovingly refers to Akroyd as someone who “could’ve been a Cronenberg or David Lynch” which piqued my interest in this movie even more. 

Nothing but Trouble opens with Chris (Chevy Chase), a hotshot financial publisher, wooing Diane (Demi Moore), a stunning attorney who turns up at his penthouse party. The two agree to meet the following day for a trip to Atlantic City as Diane is meeting with a client there. Inviting themselves, a sibling duo of Brazilian billionaires that live in Chris’s building interrupt saying they’d love a trip to Atlantic City. The next day, the group of four pile into Chris’s expensive car and begin to make their way to Atlantic City. From the backseat, the siblings beg to take the “scenic” route and Diane, being the kind woman she is, helps convince Chris to shift course. Taking the scenic route lands the group in Valkenvania, a small town with the town motto of “Nihil Tolerantur” meaning “no tolerance.” Shortly after their arrival, Chief of Police Dennis Valkenheiser (John Candy) pulls them over for failing to stop at a stop sign. Chris tries to bribe his way out of a ticket and earns a one-way ticket to the courthouse for himself and his friends where they must plead their case to Judge Alvin Valkenheiser (Dan Akroyd).

To this point in the film, everything is seemingly normal. Chevy Chase is quipping, Demi Moore looks fabulous and the sibling duo add even more comedy with their ridiculous outfits and outrageous (rich) way of existing. With the entrance into the courthouse, the eccentricity of the film starts to unfold. The courthouse looks like a bizarre-o version of the house from Clue – there’s weird art, porcelain dolls and garbage lining the stairways and much of the floor in the Tudor style mansion. The judge looks like Grandpa Sawyer from Texas Chainsaw Massacre (TCM) but acts like Beetlejuice, speaking in off-color comments and jokes only he finds funny. He comes to the conclusion that the group must spend the night in jail and their fate would later be decided. 

Chris and Diane fall through a trap door to their holding cell, landing in a pool of rubber ducks and more odd art, garbage and miscellaneous items while the twins try to make a run for it. The courthouse feels more and more like a circus-themed TCM house, with silly death traps, sliding floors, Scooby-Doo doors, eyes peering through eye holes of a painting and a rollercoaster thoughtfully named “Mister Bonestripper.” Honestly, from here the movie becomes a bit incoherent but the general premise is the two groups are trying to escape the town and at every turn meet a wacky roadblock including the Judge’s mute daughter, Eldona, played by John Candy in drag. This was definitely a highlight of the film for me as John Candy can do no wrong in any role he’s in and make even the weirdest scripts funny. The judge pushing Eldona onto Chris was the perfect utilization of Candy’s female character and was the most amused I was in the entire experience.

I would be remiss not to mention Bobo (Dan Akroyd) and Lil’ Debbull (John Daveikis), the judge’s twin “baby” grandsons who are played by grown men, one being Akroyd (again). Akroyd giving himself not one but two inserts into the cast is hilarious even if the characters leave a lot to be desired. Seemingly a reference to Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, the dirty, smelly-looking two-some work in the town’s salvage yard(?) and are physically larger than Demi Moore; they’re about as tall as John Candy. Diane runs into these twins in one of her escape attempts and does her best to appease them. This awkward encounter feels really uncomfortable and it’s impossible to tell whether it’s Demi’s incredible acting chops or genuine disgust with the look and feel of the giant babies. In a movie that already felt chaotic, the twins feel out of place and random. 

All of the characters felt like caricatures in a bad way. From Candy’s small-town cop to Moore’s city girl, they felt like over the top depictions without any actual satire or reason behind them, only contributing to the weird vibe of the film overall. Given the star power of the cast, it doesn’t appear to be from a lack of brilliant performers. On the contrary, this crew could’ve had a blockbuster hit with the right script but this one felt like it went nowhere and said nothing. Many of the design choices were also odd – and not in a charming or irreverent way, just plain bizarre. Meaningless choices infused throughout the different designs, weird for the sake of being weird; this doesn’t have to be a bad thing but it definitely did not do this film any favors.

There were a lot of little funny moments to appreciate in this film, especially in the dinner scene. The judge serves all the prisoners a children’s dinner before locking them up for the evening, complete with hot dogs, ants on a log, a giant jello slab, a literal gravy train rounding the table and Hawaiian Punch. The strangeness of the meal got a lot of great one-liners out of Chevy Chase, faux politeness from Demi Moore and an opportunity to see more John Candy drag, a welcome break from the barely there story. There was a fun tension between Chris and the judge that wasn’t really explored in the film as much as it was at the dinner scene. Playing up the tension could’ve both brought the plot further along and created some hilarious moments between Chase and Akroyd. The judge doesn’t like Chris because he’s a city-type and a banker? And he got screwed over by a banker back in the day… I guess? This relationship didn’t feel like a fully fleshed out idea but rather Akroyd came up with a random motive for the judge to treat Chris and his posse poorly and put them in nonsensical situations. 

In a world where cinephiles ask “What if you made one character a Muppet?” Dan Akroyd dares to ask, “What if they were all Muppets, especially me?” We need minds with the creativity of Akroyd; it’s how we get Ghostbusters, memorable SNL sketches and modern weirdo comedy like Friendship, Napoleon Dynamite and Baseketball. Although Nothing but Trouble is nowhere near the top of weirdo comedy gold, I’m glad it exists and happy Akroyd’s sole directorial credit is exactly as he wanted it to be.

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