Opportunity Knocks (1990)

Directed by Donald Petrie. Starring Dana Carvey, Todd Graff, Robert Loggia, Julia Campbell, Miles O’Shea, Doris Belack, James Tolkan, Mike Bacarella, Sally Gracie, John M. Watson Sr. [PG-13]

Mild comedy vehicle cashing in on Carvey’s ascending stardom on “Saturday Night Live” only plays to his strengths in a shoehorned fashion (e.g., a contrived chance for him to trot out his George Bush impression). He plays a low-rent conman on the run from Tolkan’s gangster when he bumbles his way into house-sitting for the wealthy son of Loggia’s receptive businessman. Obligatory and forgettable, but there’s enough light charm to make it a semi-tolerable form of mediocrity. Had Carvey and cohort Graff been given more of an edge (they are desperate swindlers, after all) and the gangster business been rewritten into something less formulaic, it might have worked okay, but in the hacky terms this flick can understand, don’t bother answering the door when this one comes a-knockin’.

47/100