Product Description

Ever-popular Michael J. Fox (MARS ATTACKS!, THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT) and Woody Allen (SMALL TIME CROOKS, DECONSTRUCTING HARRY) star in this hilarious comedy where an outrageous mix-up labels an unsuspecting family of American tourists as a notorious ring of spies! The Hollanders are enjoying their trip behind the Iron Curtain until Walter (Allen) innocently snaps a picture of the sunset ... over a politically sensitive area! Before he knows it, his family is the focus of a major international espionage incident! Forced to seek refuge at the American Embassy -- it's up to the Ambassador's diplomatically inept son (Fox) to keep the Hollanders from landing behind bars! With Mayim Bialik (BEACHES, TV's BLOSSOM), Dom DeLuise (ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS) and Julie Kavner (DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, TV's THE SIMPSONS) in a great cast of familiar faces -- you'll laugh along with the hapless Hollanders as they find out just how hard it is to get around the Iron Curtain!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27251 in DVD
• Brand: Disney
• Released on: 2003-07-01
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.com
Fans of Woody Allen's earlier, more purely comic movies will enjoy Don't Drink the Water, a film of his successful stage play about a hapless diplomat during the cold war. Michael J. Fox plays Axel McGee, the son of an ambassador to an unnamed Communist country. Though forced by family pressure to enter diplomacy, McGee has no talent for it whatsoever and has been kicked out of cities, countries, and even entire continents. When his father goes back to Washington to seek a higher position, he reluctantly leaves Axel in charge. For a few days, all goes well. But then the Hollanders arrive (Julie Kavner, Mayim Bialik, and Allen himself), a Jewish family from New Jersey who accidentally took pictures of a sensitive intersection. Accused of being spies, they seek asylum at the embassy--and immediately send everything out of whack by insulting the chef, tying up the phones with long distance calls, and almost starting an international incident by squabbling with a Middle Eastern emir. Eccentric characters abound, including a priest who's been in asylum at the embassy for so long he's taken up magic tricks to pass the time (Dom DeLuise) and a snooty bureaucrat who thinks McGee is an idiot (Edward Herrmann). It was funnier when the cold war was still going on, but it's still an entertaining farce, directed by Allen. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

DO buy this movie!
Don't Drink the Water is hysterical! I am a huge Woody Allen Fan and have seen nearly all of his movies. There are some movies by Woody that even I'm not that fond of BUT.....this is not one of them. This movie is entertaining and well cast. There is a lot going on and everytime I watch it I find something different that gets me going! Buy this movie and keep an eye on the subtleties. You won't be disappointed!

Well Worth Seeing
Woody Allen doesn't make appearances on television any more, so this video, which is a made-for-television film, has an element of the historic to it for Allen fans.

"Don't Drink The Water" was originally conceived as a play. The story takes place in the communist country of "Vulgaria," where Walter Hollander (Allen), a caterer from New Jersey whose claim to fame is making sculptures of a bride and groom using potato salad, his wife (Kavner) and their daughter (Bialik) take refuge in the American Embassy after wandering away from a tour group and being accused as spies.

They are assisted at the Embassy by Axel Magee (Michael J. Fox), the son of the Ambassador (away in Washington hoping for a cabinet appointment in the JFK administration. Axel Magee is a diplomat so incompetent and so inept that he has been banned from an entire continent and was once burned in effagy...by his own Embassy.

The plot, such as it is, centers on the difficult adjustment the Hollander's are having to being "guests" of the Embassy, and their later efforts to escape. Allen plays his usual neurotic, highly strung character and Kavner offers but a slight variation to her prior characterizations in "Rhoda" and the Allen short "Oedipus Wrecks" (part of the "New York Stories" trilogy). Bialik is fine and offers some shading in the role of Susan Hollander, who falls in love with Axel, and Fox does his usual fine job bringing some depth to the character of Axel Magee.

The high point in casting, however, is that of the fine character actor Edward Hermann in the role of "Kilroy." It's a pity that Hermann isn't seen more often, because he is a gem of an actor. His character, Kilroy, is an ultra-conservative by-the-book diplomat who despises Axel Magee for his incompetence. Then, hit in the head by a projectile during a riot outside the Embassy, he suffers a concussion and acts as though he were the Wright brothers -- both of them. The low point in casting is that of Dom DeLuise as "Father Drobny," a priest who has sought political asylum at the Embassy and hasn't left in seven years. DeLuise, regrettably, offers us the same pseudo-Italian accent he's been doing since the "Dean Martin Roasts" and "Smokey & The Bandit II."

Although the characters are somewhat broadly drawn (remember, this is farce), the film was enjoyable and a definite move forward from the late 1960's-early 1970's film version that starred Jackie Gleason, Estelle Parsons and Ted Bessell (the latter of "That Girl" fame).

My favorite line from the film. Upon learning that his catering partner has purchased budget beef, resulting in guests contracting food poisoning at a function his company catered, the following exchange occurs: KAVNER: Are they going to sue? ALLEN: No, Marion. We're going to sue them. For low resistance to tainted meat.

You don't need to be a fan of Woody Allen to enjoy this movie.

An Allen throwback to the good old days
What kind of Woody Allen fan are you? Do you favor his heavy, drama-laden homages to Bergman? His film noir? His zany early comedies?

If you love the latter, you'll probably like this "lost" gem. A bit like "Manhattan Murder Mystery" which was resurrected years after it was written, "Don't Drink the Water" conjures the early days of Allen's career with zany comedy full of larger than life characters and over-the-top performances.

The cast is great, the script is too, the plot moves along nicely and in general I had great fun. Yes, it seems a bit claustrophobic at times and a bit stagey, but many of Allen's recent work has a similar feel regardless of the genre.

All in all it is an enjoyable farce that harkens back to the golden days of Allen's comic genius.