title: GUNG-HO
year: 1986
cast: Michael Keaton, George Wendt, Gedde Watanabe
rating: ***1/2
An epic-scope small town comedy, "Gung Ho" centers on a Japanese car company that moves into a shut-down underwear factory. Michael Keaton plays the guy who set it all up and made it happen (in a great rudimentary sequence in Japan), and whose reputation relies on saving the town from going bankrupt. Dating alpha female Mimi Rogers, working with buddy George Wendt and trying hard to continue working for Gedde Watanabe as an imported Japanese plant manager, the laughs aren't plentiful but it's still a decent comedy. While individual jokes don't make it work, the situations Keaton gets in... digging himself deeper and deeper in a hole and his reactions along the way, are what pulls it all through. Vastly underrated, albeit a little uneven, it's one of director Ron Howard's best.
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