Tootsie (1982)
Rating: 1/10.
I’m aware this will sound to many like a cop-out, and I’ll catch a ton of flack for it, but I just didn’t find Tootsie funny. Plain and simple. There’s nothing more to it than that.I take no issue with the performances, nor the direction. The songs are somewhat sappy, but not awfully so. No, my problem with the film is its humor does not appeal to me. There’s no big, underlying reason for why; it wasn’t offensive, for instance. All I know is I chuckled, lightly, a total of three times during the movie, and for the rest of the time I sat there stone-faced, checking to see how much longer till it was over. Again, it was through no fault of Dustin Hoffman or the rest of the cast, nor even the writers. What I’m talking about here isn’t bad comedy, but rather the inoffensive kind that fails to have any effect on me whatsoever. Clearly, it’s someone’s cup of tea. It’s not considered a classic for no reason. It’s just not mine, and not even Dustin Hoffman’s dazzling performance can change the fact that, though his lines may be delivered perfectly based on what the script calls for, they do nothing for me.
