Cheech And Chong's Nice Dreams

As with all Cheech and Chong films, the plot is wholly irrelevant. What there is concerns itself with Cheech and Chong selling drugs, which happens to turn some people into lizards (although, strangely, not them) and then losing all the money they've made. Sounds like every other C&C film, with the addition of lizards, right?

Nice Dreams is a pale shadow of their magnum opus, Up In Smoke, where the rough edges add to its stoned charm, while Nice Dreams' charms are swamped by too many rough edges.

The tenuous plot links are even more vague than usual and often cross the line into being problematic. The lizard subplot is practically abandoned and Stacy Keach's fine reprise, as Sgt. Stedanko, with it. Tim Rossovich is supposed to be gormless as Det. Noodles, but it's less playing the part of a halfwit and more an appalling performance that drags down every scene he's in.

For all that's wrong with Nice Dreams - and there's an awful lot when you look - it's a wonderfully fun film, with great character. It's the comedy that carries it. When first watched, the more obvious gags, such as Cheech singing a song about saving the whales (and shooting seals) will have you in hysterics. On subsequent viewing, it's scenes such as making the "tortilla pizza", or throwaway lines like a hippy rest-home called Laidback Manor, that elicit the greatest response.

Other than the previously mentioned Rossovich, the performances serve the film admirably. Cheech and Chong play their trademark stoned innocents. Paul Rubens, as the coked-up mental patient, and Suzanne Kent, as Sidney the agent, come close to stealing the show from our two heroes. Any film that can boast cameos from both Michael Winslow, the one who does the funny voices in the Police Academy films, and Doctor Acid himself, Timothy Leary, has to get my seal of approval!

Nice Dreams is more of a guilty little pleasure than a firm favourite.