Classic Movie Review: 'Cabin Boy'

Cabin Boy (1994)

Directed by Adam Resnick

Written by Adam Resnick, Chris Elliott

Starring Chris Elliott, Melora Waters, David Letterman, Andy Richter

Release Date January 7th, 1994

Published January 16th, 2024

Cabin Boy is a miserable attempt at comedy. That's surprising because, in general, comic Chris Elliott's absurd style of comedy is usually pretty great. I can remember being a kid and loving the weird gags Elliott did for David Letterman on Late Night. I remember some of his short-lived TV series Get a Life which also featured surreal running gags about Elliott being an overgrown child, one of the original Peter Pan Complex types. Elliott did a tremendous job of making man-children the subject of mockery. He targeted over-privileged mama's boys and clueless, entitled men who couldn't understand why the world didn't constantly bend to their will.

It's a good brand of comedy and you can sense him bringing some of that sensibility to 1994's Cabin Boy. Elliott's main character, Nathaniel Mayweather, proudly calls himself a Fancy Lad, even as others intend it as an insult to his ill-mannered over-privileged man child. As we join the story of Cabin Boy, Nathaniel is finishing four years of insulting everyone less rich than him. Witless, irritating and openly cruel, Nathaniel is exactly the kind of character who needs a comeuppance and a valuable lesson about not being cruel to people of lesser status. You might assume that that will be the story of Cabin Boy and it kind of is. But, the reality of Cabin Boy is far more disjointed and odd.

After getting kicked out of a limousine that is ferrying Fancy Lad Nathaniel to a luxury cruise to his mansion in Hawaii, Nathaniel takes a wrong turn and ends up at the wrong port. Here, Nathaniel will end up boarding a stinking fishing boat called The Filthy Whore. Mistaking it for a themed cruise ship, Nathaniel becomes a stowaway on the fishing boat that is most certainly not headed to Hawaii. The salty smelly crew is a collection of character actors that includes James Gammon, Brion James, and frequent Chris Elliott collaborator, Brian Doyle Murray. Eventually the crew will add a woman, Trina (Melora Waters), as a very unlikely love interest for Nathaniel.

I've given a rudimentary shape to Cabin Boy but the reality is much less linear. In reality, Cabin Boy is a series of random, mostly unfunny gags that don't add up to much of a story. Among the failing oddities is a character played by Russ Tamblyn. The former star of West Side Story plays a half-man-half-shark, who falls in love with Nathaniel and thus ends up saving his life on more than one occasion. Tamblyn has a nice smile but nothing that the movie has him do is funny. He looks weird as a human-shark hybrid but if you aren't laughing at that description, you probably won't laugh at the character in the context of Cabin Boy.

The only moment that Cabin Boy approaches it's comic potential happens very early in the film. As Nathaniel is searching for his luxury crew ship, he's approached by a man selling sock monkeys. Credited as Earl Hoebert, an old reference to Late Night with David Letterman, David Letterman shows up in Cabin Boy to utter the iconic line 'Hey, would you like to buy a monkey?' Letterman made the line a running gag on Late Night with David Letterman for much of the early part of 1994 and because it was Letterman, it never failed to get a laugh. Even in the dreary depths of Cabin Boy, an abyss where comedy can't escape, Letterman being Letterman manages to earn the only thing close to a laugh with his wonderful cameo.

One the sock monkey selling Letterman is done, Cabin Boy floats adrift in search of absurd laughs that never come. Chris Elliott is not a particularly likable leading man. He's just generally not appealing and while we should be laughing when he gets taught a lesson, the movie actually avoids many chances to teach Nathaniel a lesson. Instead, the movie leans into Nathaniel as a bumbler who succeeds out of his sheer incompetence. He comes to bond with his new fisherman friends by saving them from a situation he created and, through it all, Nathaniel doesn't get any funnier. He doesn't become a better or more appealing person. Instead, Nathaniel is a vehicle for unfunny, disconnected gags that peter out to an unsatisfying ending.

Cabin Boy is the first new movie of the all new I Hate Critics 1994 Podcast. As the first film released theatrically in 1994, Cabin Boy had to kick off the year. What a shame that it trips all over itself. That said, my co-host, Amy K, liked Cabin Boy, somehow. Thus, you can listen to us argue humorously over our divided opinion of the first movie of 1994. You can listen to the I Hate Critics 1994 Podcast on the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast Feed, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you enjoy the show, please give us a review and share the podcast with friends. We love this show and we hope you will love it just as much.

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