Black Sheep

The first time I saw any clip from Black Sheep, I honestly thought they were deleted scenes from Tommy Boy. Later on I realized that this was a real movie and it came out about year after Tommy Boy. I mean why not capitalize on success right?

For a long time, I thought the plots of the films were very similar. It wasn't until it came out on Netflix that I decided to take a look and see how different the films actually are.

Black Sheep is the story of Mike Donnelly (played by Chris Farley). Donnelly's brother, Al (played by Tim Matheson) is running for governor of the state of Washington and Mike is becoming more and more of a problem as the election comes up with his clumsy antics and Farley-like behavior.

His campaign manager (played by Timothy Carhart) tries to advise Al to make Mike go away for a little bit until the election is over. Despite Mike's attempt to be helpful in his brother's campaign, he just keeps screwing up. They need someone to take care of Mike until the election is over and that person ends up being Steve (played by David Spade) a campaign aid who wants to succeed in Al's future administration.

After a series of events, Mike needs to lay low and the two of them escape to a cabin in the woods.

Honestly the rest of the movie is a bunch of hijinks that display Chris Farley's physical humor in the middle of the woods.

And unfortunately, the movie does seem like its just a lot of deleted scenes from Tommy Boy. Yeah there are a couple parts where he's trying to help his brother win the election, but its a problem if I used to turn this film on and think that it was just scenes I missed from Tommy Boy.

What's weird about this film is that they actually try and pull out some of Farley's acting chops. There are a lot of points where he is legitimately sad or distraught over things that happen to him and the people he cares about. On top of all of it, David Spade doesn't really reprise his role of being the smart short guy who criticized Farley for being a large oaf. Spade is actually on his side for the majority of the film and doesn't really lose patience with Farley at all.

And honestly, while I think the movie was trying to differentiate itself from Tommy Boy, that was something they could have ripped off. The part where Tommy and Richard are fighting is actually a really funny part and that doesn't really happen in this film. Mike and Steve really just become friends and that's it.

Honestly, I watched this film a couple months ago and I've been meaning to write this review for a while. The honest truth is that the film really isn't that memorable. It might be a great example of how Farley can make things really really funny if he has a spanning wood line and a log cabin, but in the end this movie really doesn't resonate with me the same way Tommy Boy did. The villain is pretty bland, his brother is pretty forgettable and while I love the duo of Spade and Farley, to me, Black Sheep will always be the scenes that didn't make it into Tommy Boy.

Don't get me wrong, if you like Tommy Boy, Black Sheep is a great way to get some of the same laughs just watching Farley be Farley. And there are some good parts of the film.

Gary Busey is in this film and oddly enough, he's a lot of fun. Not nearly memorable as he should have been but I think if you have a night free and just need a good laugh the only way Farley knew how to do it, Black Sheep might be the way to go.

As a movie though, its not that great.

I'm realizing that this is probably a shorter review than the movie deserves, especially since its been a couple weeks after I actually watched it, but I thought I'd get this review out and let you guys know about Black Sheep and my thoughts.

What did you think of Black Sheep? Where does it stand in the list of Chris Farley films? Comment and Discuss below! Or shoot me a message @cmhaugen24 on Twitter and follow me to get updates on movie news and reviews!

I'll leave you with this. Its a short video for a short review and I know that some people were Wisconsin fans last night that got heart broken when they lost to Duke. In case you didn't know, Matt Foley loves the Wisconsin Badgers. Enjoy!