MOVIE REVIEW : Looney-Tune ‘Honeymoon’

He’ll always be the Other Bergman to some people, less glamorous than Ingrid, less morose than Ingmar, more obscure than either one. But no matter, because when it comes to modern screen comedy, writer-director Andrew Bergman is, as “Honeymoon in Vegas” (citywide) proves one more time, nothing less than the emperor of the absurd, a man who is funny in a way quite his own.

Beginning with his screenplay work on “Blazing Saddles” and “The In-Laws” through “So Fine” and “The Freshman,” his first features as writer-director, Bergman has polished a distinctive, giddily anarchic comedy style that is as hard to define as it is easy to recognize. Working so close to the edge of the envelope that you often don’t know whether to laugh or gasp, Bergman comes up with comic situations so extreme that his put-upon characters often have difficulty accepting just how lunatic their predicaments are.

Take the story of Jack Singer (Nicolas Cage). A regular guy with a fairly regular job as a detective specializing in divorce work, he is very much in love with Betsy Nolan (Sarah Jessica Parker), the sweetest of second-grade teachers, who feels likewise about him. A wedding might ordinarily be expected, except that Jack’s take-no-prisoners mother (a crusty cameo by Anne Bancroft) has extracted a deathbed promise that he will never do the deed.

Finally, faced with the possibility of losing Betsy, Jack uncertainly decides to make the best of things. “Let’s get on the plane,” he says, breathing hard. “Go to Vegas. Do it.” Which turns out to be his first mistake, and not just because the city is simultaneously hosting what looks to be the largest gathering of Elvis impersonators ever held in one place.

Rather it’s because Vegas is the home of Tommy Korman (James Caan), a big-time gambler with a killer instinct. Mobster though he is, Tommy is also something of a romantic and still mourns his late wife, who spent too many hours around too many pools reading too many Sidney Sheldon novels before falling victim to the sun’s deadly rays.

So when Tommy spies the still-unmarried Betsy, the image of his departed wife, across a crowded hotel lobby, it stands to reason that he will do anything to get her to marry him. And given that this is an Andrew Bergman movie, anything includes arranging a high-stakes poker game with an Asian Elvis imitator, a towel-chewing Jerry Tarkanian (not playing himself) and a glasses-heavy gambler know as Tommy Cataracts (a dyspeptic Seymour Cassell).

Suddenly, Jack is in such a fearsome hole that Tommy’s suggestion that spending a chaste weekend with Betsy would be the only acceptable payback starts to make a kind of demented sense. What happens when Betsy gets this particular piece of news is when “Honeymoon in Vegas” really gets started, and a typically frenetic series of events (involving the state of Hawaii, a dentist named Sally Molars who doubles as a bookie and says things like “8-to-5 you need root canal,” even more Elvis imitators and a full 20 of the songs the King made famous) zestily unwinds.

The more chaotic the farce, the more delicate the casting must be, and the three principals in the PG-13-rated “Honeymoon in Vegas” are just as they should be. Nicolas Cage, whose best work has always been in seriously over-the-top comic/romantic roles (“Moonstruck,” “Raising Arizona,” “Valley Girl”), once again displays the quintessential air of frenetic desperation, eyes widening more and more as his plight gets increasingly preposterous.

James Caan, whose Tommy Korman mimics “The Godfather’s” Sonny Corleone in the same way that Marlon Brando echoed the glowering Don in “The Freshman,” displays more than fine comic timing here. He makes the gambler sweeter and more human than comic performances usually are, and his touching fervor about marriage gently underscores Jack’s continuing ambivalence. And as the object of both men’s increasingly manic affections, Sarah Jessica Parker not only looks appropriately attractive but also brings an essential down-to-earth sanity to the role.

One of the major treats of any Andrew Bergman film are the subsidiary characters, and they are especially rich here. In addition to Sally Molars, we meet the musical-obsessed Chief Orman (Peter Boyle), an officious hogger of airline counter space (Ben Stein), a client of Jack’s (Robert Costanza) who emotionally insists that his unlikely wife is having a torrid affair with Mike Tyson, and, of course, all those Elvises.

Though “Honeymoon in Vegas” has one of his most accessible premises, Andrew Bergman has never been to everyone’s taste and probably never will. He is something of a spritzer in the Mel Brooks mode, someone who spews out such a torrent of manic material that by definition not all of it is going to work. But in an age where screen comedy tends to fit snugly in a handful of pre-set synthetic molds, his all-natural craziness comes as a special treat. Especially if you like to laugh.

‘Honeymoon in Vegas’

James Caan: Tommy Korman

Nicolas Cage: Jack Singer

Sarah Jessica Parker: Betsy/Donna

Pat Morita: Mahi

Johnny Williams: Johnny Sandwich

John Capodice: Sally Molars

Robert Costanza: Sidney Tomashefsky

A Castle Rock Entertainment/Lobell-Bergman production, released by Columbia Pictures. Director Andrew Bergman. Producer Mike Lobell. Executive producer Neil Machlis. Screenplay Andrew Bergman. Cinematographer William A. Fraker. Editor Barry Malkin. Costumes Julie Weiss. Music David Newman. Production design William A. Elliott. Art director John Warnke. Set decorator Linda De Scenna. Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13.

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