Men at Work

As a part of this review I would appreciate it if you would take a moment, when prompted below, to use the links to enjoy selections from the Men At Work soundtrack to audibly enhance your reading pleasure.

When first asked to write a review for the Estravaganza I was immediately filled with a sense of awe and wonder, that I would be deemed worthy enough write any sort of critique on Mr. Estevez. I had never viewed his film Men At Work and ordered it straight away on Netflix ready to be immersed in some fine acting and deep soul searching, little did I expect that I was going to be drawn into a soul affirming and era defining work of cinematic genius. What happened has taken me three weeks to fully summarize.

As the 1980’s drew to a close and we looked back on a decade of empirical excess and strange culture, Emilio Estevez, fresh from a decade that was very kind to him at the box office, glanced about the landscape of 1990 and decided that the time had come for his singular voice to be heard in the same way that Orson Welles chose to make his heard in the newly made days of the 1940’s. Estevez knew that it was time for him to become a writer/director/actor. With this vision playing in his head he began planning a film that would define the year it was released and forever mark a moment in time. That film was Men At Work.

Men at Work flies off the screen at you from the opening frame like a rabid, neon purple speedo wearing, jogging freak on mescaline, I doubt highly that Citizen Kane can make a similar claim. The opening shot finds our hero, James St. James [Emilio Estevez], lying on a Los Angeles beach as the morning light creeps over the horizon he is spooning a gorgeous blond with rockin tits and a really sweet wave hair do. Realizing he is late for his work we see the callous manner that James St. James has for aforementioned rockin tits as he dismisses them with a shrug and a wave. We are truly dealing with a man here who posses a massive boner. His truly epic genital size established, we go with James to his job as a garbage man where he meets up with his garbage partner Carl Taylor [Charlie Sheen]. As the opening credits go by to the strains of Ub 40’s “Wear You To The Ball” we get a feel for these two men and their bond as they bust shit up, pull pranks on their co workers, and generally play by their own rules, all of this established at the 3:00 minute mark. Does Casablanca posses such a perfect character exposition montage set to a glorious reggae slacker anthem? No, I did not think so. The movie progresses to tell the story of these waste bin rebels and their struggles against the society that would make them stop drinking beer on the job and taking extended lunch breaks to ogle even more rockin tits and force them into the evil world of responsibility and wearing condoms. Playing by your own rules comes with a price and that price is steep.

Having finished another day of awesome playing by their own rules, the boys are confronted by their boss, who does not think much of their rules and wants them to obey his. He tells them that he is going to put them on probation and send his brother along with them on their next shift to report back any unwarranted breast ogling or property destruction. Yeah, lame, right? Disenheartened our hero’s return to Carl’s house and drink beer and ogle more rockin tits by spying on the hottie in the apartment across the way. They see her get abused by her boyfriend and then shoot him in the ass with a pellet gun. Little do they realize that said boyfriend is about to be killed by a evil polluting mob boss who is mad at boyfriend because he won’t let mob boss dump toxic chemicals into the ocean. Our heroes don’t see the actual killing and then assume that the man has simply vanished, deterred from his domestic violence by their pellet gun. In a celebratory mood concerning their recent victory for the side of good, they return to drinking and passing out.

Next day, accompanied by their boss’s brother, our intrepid lads go about their job with much anger and disgust at their babysitter, who we find out is a screw loose Vietnam Vet who also happens to enjoy beer and rockin tits. On their route they discover the dead body of boyfriend from the night before. Fearing police who are assholes, they take the “playing by their own rules” route and conceal the dead body in the truck. After work the boys begrudgingly allow batshit Vet to come over to Carl’s house with the body of boyfriend, where more beer is consumed [honestly, at some point you would expect liver failure to happen] and more rockin tits are checked out. Then they order pizza. From here the night takes off and our hero’s must face off against the mob, Charlie Sheen gets close to the titties and might get to touch them, and they have to drink even more beer while dodging the cops. See, I told you playing by your own rules is not easy.

As you can see Estevez has created a slice of life from the world’s of two L.A. garbage men in the sweltering summer of 1990. Watching this movie is like being transported back to a time when rockin tits and beer were all man needed to survive. This message is even more important now. In an age where our once mighty economy that provided six figure salaries for toddlers has been reduced to shambles, the message that brew, rockin tits, and playing by your own rules are all that really matters is exactly what we need to reset the American Dream. Estevez has created a unique vision that years later we still feel the relevance of. His stoic refusal to allow the characters of James St. James and Carl Taylor to be drawn into the unnecessary rat race of the world is a uncompromising vision that can echo throughout the ages. Played to perfection by these two titanic thespians these characters crackle with a Bugs Bunny like American swagger, that says “Yeah, I spent the better part of my afternoon making a complex booby trap that will spray my co workers with shit, but fuck you”. Does “Gone With The Wind” possess such a truly American moment? I think not.

My time spent with the magic that was this movie imbued me with a new appreciation for Estevez. He transported cinema from the 80’s to the 90’s with this film and directed the same way that James St. James lived, by his own rules. Orson Welles had he not been super fat and dead of congenital heart failure in 1990 would have most likely recognized the maverick spirit in which this film was made with the same unique swagger with which he created “Citizen Kane” and also with some similarly seriously rockin tits. Seriously. Rockin. Tits.