aive, clumsy Pistachio Disguisey is a bumbling waiter in the family Italian restaurant, so foolish that when he dumps spaghetti on the heads of his patrons, he tries to make amends by adding grated cheese. But he can't seem to shake the odd compulsion to mask himself as other people.
Then, one day, he sees his father and mother kidnapped by a mysterious figure in a limousine. He's beside himself with worry until he receives a surprise visit from his estranged grandfather, who explains that the Disguiseys are in actuality crusaders for justice whose inborn skill at costumes and mimicry has helped them fight evil for centuries. Grandfather explains that the family is heir to a mysterious binding force named Energico which gives them the power to disguise themselves as practically anything.
Meanwhile, Frabbrizio Disguisey finds himself the prisoner of Bowman, a megalomaniac whose chief drawback as a supervillain is his tendency to pass wind at the height of his crazed maniacal laughter. Bowman forces Frabbrizio to use his powers to steal such national treasures as the Liberty Bell and the Constitution. Frabbrizio accomplishes this by transforming into celebrities and asking dimwitted but cooperative security guards to lend him the treasures. Bowman always laughs maniacally after every heist, his sense of triumph always turning to dismay as he passes wind yet again.
Pistachio uses his powers of disguise in ever more mortifying ways, at one point infiltrating an upscale club by pretending to be half-man, half-turtle. He further disguises himself as Al Pacino from Scarface, Robert Shaw from Jaws and a cow flop. Even so, Jennifer continues to think Pistachio's an idiot until she suddenly falls in love with him for no apparent reason.
A painful milestone in cinema history
The terrible danger, in reviewing any movie as jaw-droppingly awful as The Master of Disguise, lies in accidentally giving the impression that it's so-bad-it's-good. The challenge is specifying just how stupid, just how unfunny and just how interminable it is, and how much pain it inflicts. The word "bad" just covers too much possible territory.
So let's try this. Master of Disguise belongs to several separate genres of moviemaking, all of which have been known to produce entertaining films and even classics from time to time, but which are also responsible for some classic spasms of transcendent badness. It succeeds in reaching new depths in all these categories.
For instance, it stars Dana Carvey, which means it falls into the category of Films Starring Alumni of Saturday Night Live. Would you believe us if we told you that this is the all-time worst film starring anybody who was ever a cast member of that show? Worse than Loose Cannons, Under the Rainbow and Doctor Detroit? Worse than It's Pat?
The film also stars Brent Spiner, which means it falls into the category of Films Starring Alumni of Star Trek. Would you believe us if we told you that this is the all-time worst film starring anybody who ever appeared as a regular cast member? Worse than Night of the Lepus? Worse than anything William Shatner ever did? Worse than anything Whoopi Goldberg's been in, since she counts? So bad that the adoring fan from the documentary Trekkies, who loves to go out on her back porch to gaze at Brent Spiner's house from afar, might conceivably be cured of her obsession by watching this film? Are you getting the picture now?
The film also stars James Brolin, whose career never did overflow with good movies; it's the worst movie he's ever been in. Bo Derek, another veteran of bad movies, is in it; it's the worst movie ever to feature Bo Derek. It's also the all-time worst spy spoof. Is that picture beginning to clear?
Was this film made for children? Looks like it. But would children recognize Carvey's lampoon of James Mason (or Ronald Colman, I couldn't tell)? Would they realize that the slap-fight he has with a bully in a restaurant is a direct parody of one from the '70s western My Name is Nobody? Would they be able to recognize the only marginally funny bit, which itself goes on far too long, his parody of Robert Shaw's soliloquy from Jaws? Would they recognize the Al-Pacino-as-Scarface imitation? Would they see that Grandfather's entrance resembles Max von Sydow's in The Exorcist? Would their dozing parents?
None of this is amusing or clever. Carvey's antics are just tortured and desperate. Spiner salvages some dignity, but not much. Jennifer Esposito, as Pistachio's assistant, is a bright spot. She projects just the right amount of mortification and disbelief at his dumbness—until she is required to pretend she's fallen in love with him, where her task becomes hopeless. Endless to the point of agony at 65 minutes, with an additional 15 minutes of outtakes (mind-boggling both for the revelation that there were scenes too bad to make it into the film proper, and for the accomplishment of being the worst film ever to close with outtakes), the film doesn't even have the smarts to recognize the several moments where it anticipates its own bad reviews. Early on, Pistachio engages in some shtick for the amusement of a little boy ... who doesn't laugh any more than the audience does. The filmmakers should have paid attention to that. Also early on, a fat-butted girl Pistachio tries to date tells him that all his funny voices and funny faces may be cute for a couple of minutes but got on her nerves almost immediately. The filmmakers should have paid attention to that, too.
And then there's the dialogue spoken when the two leads supposedly fall in love. Like most beautiful women in stupid comedies, Jennifer is way smarter and way more attractive than the stupid hero. And, typically, she's destined to fall in love with the man even though she knows he's a hopeless idiot. When it happens here, she declares her love for Pistachio by telling him that she originally thought he was weird, annoying, pathetic and deranged. The immediate mystery is why she didn't stick with her first impression.
