[5]

John Landis (Animal House, An American Werewolf in London) directs comedy heavyweights Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short in this goofy flick about three silent film stars who accept a job in Mexico only to realize it’s not a film they’re working on, but a real-life battle between a small village and their tyrannical overlord. I suppose for a kid-friendly comedy, ¡Three Amigos! is okay. But the Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai storyline becomes a paint-by-numbers chore to get through and I’ve seen all three of these leading men do much better work. I was more taken by Alfonso Arau and Tony Plana’s exchanges as the villainous El Guapo and Jefe, as well as the gloriously absurd sequence involving ‘the singing bush’ and ‘the invisible swordsman’.