My Review of "Brewster's Millions"

I first saw Brewster's Millions a while back and I remember enjoying it. I was a little bit older probably just getting out of university and my friend told me about the movie. It was a funny concept that worked pretty well.

It's about Montgomery Brewster, played by Richard Prior. I know the name sounds funny for him to play but they address this in the movie. Montgomery is a washed out baseball pitcher for an unknown minor league baseball team in New York. Unbeknownst to Montgomery, a very rich relative of his had recently passed away. Unfortunately for Montgomery his relative decided to play a game so that he can inherit his full inheritance of 300 million dollars.

Montgomery had two choices. Either take one million dollars cash and leave or play the game and inherit the 300 million dollars. Obviously, he chose to play the game. So the game asks him to spend 30 million dollars in 30 days. Obviously we all think this is easy but there are catches. He can't just give away the money and he can't hold onto assets. They would provide him an accountant to keep tabs on every dollar that he spends to ensure that he had actually spent the 30 million dollars in total.

This movie took place in the 80's and I'm sure even in the 80's spending 30 million dollars in 30 days wouldn't be that difficult. This is a comedy of course and they had some clever situations that come about that cause him to gain some of the money back despite his reckless spending.

There are of course bad guys that want him to fail because they'd be the ones inheriting the 300 million dollars instead of Montgomery should he fail. It's fun to watch them squirm while Montgomery has some ingenious ways of out thinking them.

It's funny to see how Montgomery starts to hate spending money despite the fact that it's making everyone else around him happy except for the ones that care about him. I guess it could have been a social commentary as to who your real friends are in life.

Again, it's been years since I've watched this movie and I still think it's a great movie. The movie has been able to pass the test of time. I'm just surprised they haven't made a sequel out of this movie yet. I could see a ton of good actors today that could remake this movie in modern times.

They wouldn't be able to replicate the same charm and charisma of this movie though. Richard Prior is as charming as ever in this movie. It's fun watching him in some of his old movies. He's got that funny quirkiness that I miss from the 80's. Montgomery's best friend in this movie was Spike, played by John Candy. He's as charismatic as ever in this movie. I almost forgot how fun he is on camera. It made me want to re-watch a few of his old films again.

This movie was made in a different time though. Back in 1985 I found that there was much more acceptance of family friendly movies. It was acceptable to have a little kookiness and wholesome fun in movies. Today they'd change the movie a lot to fit modern times. I think they'd probably give it a darker edge as well. So maybe this movie might not work that great. We think too much when we watch movies and sometimes that sucks for movie writers.

Overall, I would say I had just as much fun watching this movie today as I did around twenty years ago. It's a fun ride through some wholesome fun. It's obviously a family friendly movie so you won't see Montgomery taking drugs or crazy sinful vices. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. I would definitely recommend this movie and I would probably watch this movie again if someone asked me to watch it with them.