Gung Ho

Entertaining but still fairly racist and lazy

A Japanese car company comes to American to save an American plant and the jobs of everyone in a small town.


Michael Keaton had many prominent roles in the eighties and early nineties, and you can see why by his ability to carry lazy material like this into entertaining levels. He doesn't do it alone though because Gedde Watanabe, a native American pretending to be a native Japanese man. Both guys are inherently likable but flawed, which makes them easy to relate to the audience. They are both trying their best to make their situations work, but are not quite as selfless as they like to pretend.


They are the exceptions though in Gung Ho. The American workers are generally racist, stubborn, ignorant, and ungrateful at the second chance they got to earn a living in their hometown. There is no real substance to any of them; they are all the same. The Japanese workers are just grouped together into one mass of stereotypes. The laziness of the screenplay really holds back what could have been a solid movie about different cultures working together to make the best of a situation.


This movie is on Netflix Instant Streaming and is worth watching at least.


Movie Rating: 5/10