Still Smokin (1983) User Reviews

Not C&C's best, but worth a few laughs

[theskylabadventure · 5/10 · 30 May 2008]

Let's be honest, Cheech & Chong weren't exactly artists, but some of their earlier movies were a lot of fun. This was their 4th or 5th movie, and it's basically a tired rehash of the same stoner jokes they were knocking out in Up In Smoke. Having said that, it is still fun to a certain audience; the same audience who like Beavis & Butthead or Jay & Silent Bob really.

It's not just the infantile humour, it's that age old story of 'loser makes good' that we all find so satisfying over and over again. While C&C don't really achieve anything in any of their movies, they do have fun not achieving it.

In this movie they end up in Amsterdam, where they are mistaken for Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton (obviously). You can pretty much imagine the rest of the movie as is. It's stupid, it's childish, it's juvenile - and that's exactly the point.

I am your biggest fan. I have see all your movies, except the last one.

[CelluloidRehab · 6/10 · 29 June 2006]

Cheech and Chong are invited to an international film festival in Amsterdam. When they arrive, Cheech is momentarily mistaken for Burt Reynolds. In true Cheech and Chong fashion, this guy they met at a party in LA (Patrick) got them tickets to this festival. This Patrick guy took the event promoters money and car, as well. The promoter is having trouble funding the event and is expecting Burt and Dolly to show up. Cheech and Chong inevitable fill Mr. Burt and Mr. Dolly's roles in the event. While staying in Amsterdam, all their needs are met for (inadvertantly and with comic consequences by the promoter) by just signing for it. When our heroes get bored of living the good life at the hotel (a debauchery combination of ganja, room service and "room service"), they hit the town. At the Bvlgar Café, they stop to eat the entire menu (consisting of multiple types of sensi and schrooms).

The movie is pretty straight forward. It is a basic fish out of water story. Cheech and Chong are dropped in a nonsensical situation in a foreign country. The rest of the movie is a collage of day dreams and ideas (series of sketches or vignettes) for the show they want to put on for the promoter in Amsterdam. These include the following :

Cheech and Chong are super famous celebrities.

The last part is Cheech and Chong doing a live or live-like stand up performance at the "festival".

Red Neck stand up and the world's oldest blue singer, Blind Melon Chitlin.

Queer Wars.

Con Talk.

Dope-A-Thon.

The Harder They Don't Come movie.

Wrestling with Italian champion Bruno Hakoluki and his partner Ichi Scratchi.

This movie is probably the most straight forward of all the Cheech and Chong movies. I get the impression that the team wanted to see if they could go back to their stand up/live audience roots. I still think it is a step up from Things are Tough all Over and even the Corsican Brothers. I did wish that C&C did spend more time in Amsterdam than the virtual sketch comedy. For the most part the movie is amusing and a nice distraction. I find it hard to recommend this movie for non-fans of Cheech and Chong. Based on this fact alone, I would probably rate this movie as their least successful. I would only recommend this movie for the die-hard C&C fans.

Not as great

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 5 March 2021]

As Cheech and Chong would make their fifth movie in five years, they went back to the routines that had made them stars on their old comedy albums, with a story that they were in Amsterdam for a Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton festival, with the promoters believing that Cheech is Burt.

After a series of skits, including a parody of The Harder They Come, the last twenty minutes of this movie is concert footage from Cheech and Chong's show at the Tuschinski Theatre.

Susan Hahn, who played the hotel maid in this, was only in one other movie, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, which is a very strange film trajectory. You can also look out for cameos from Kay Parker (yes, from Taboo), Linnea Quigley (her second Cheech and Chong appearance) and Victoria Wells (in her third Cheech and Chong appearance; she's the woman who discovered the body of Bob Crane).

I can be honest and say that this is not the team's finest work, but as films made to fulfill a contract or get a free trip to Amsterdam go, it's not the worst.

An ill-conceived misfire...

[mentalcritic · 1/10 · 16 October 2004]

Nobody else seems to know how to make a hilarious, easy-going film like Up In Smoke, and if this effort is any indication, it would appear that the duo don't really know it either. In fact, if I had to assess why Up In Smoke was such a classic in spite of its uneven pace, Still Smokin' would lead me to believe that it was purely a miraculous accident. But even without comparison to Up In Smoke, Still Smokin' is by any standard a complete mess.

The concept around which the film is based seems interesting enough. The stoner duo, playing themselves for a change, are invited to a film festival in Holland. The idea being that Holland, with its somewhat less Nancy-Boy approach to drug consumption, regards the pair as celebrities. Or at least, that is the idea behind one of the sketches. And this is where the problem begins. The plot, such as it is, loosely ties together a series of Comedy Company-style sketches that just don't work. Some of them, such as the interview with an adoring Dutch film critic society, smack of self-indulgence.

The one part of this film that comes close to working is the blind blues harmonica player. Chong literally comes onto the stage wearing some kind of brown paint over his face, and, tapping out a beat with his foot, blows into his empty hands. It is a lot funnier to watch than it looks on paper (or a monitor), and I still cannot watch a lot of Charles Bronson's scenes in C'era una volta il West without cracking up because of it. If the rest of the film had been like this, it would have been a major success.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film is based around such idiocies as a wrestling match with invisible opponents that goes on way too long, or a stage performance in which the stoner duo impersonate dogs. I can't remember if they really do such things as sniff each others' butts, but given how low and undignified this sounds in text form, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. What would surprise me would be the Paramount executives being fully sober and lucid when they greenlighted this mess. Seriously, did they even have a finished script when principal photography began?

In all, I gave Still Smokin' a one out of ten. It is not bad enough to be good, but it is bad enough to be just plain bad. Aside from the one funny skit I outlined above, the entire film was, and still is, a big waste of cash. I am not surprised in the slightest that the Just Say No movement picked up momentum shortly after films like this. They suggest quite strongly that marijuana might not be so harmless after all.

A slightly above average comedy film

[rory_carlyle · 7/10 · 13 August 2002]

Two stoners named Cheech and Chong are invited to a Dutch film festival by mistake. Hmm... can you guess what stoners do in the Netherlands? Well, apart from being the most idiotic and stupid of the Cheech and Chong movies, this film does stand up pretty well compared to some of todays dope-movies. What it lacks in plot it makes up for with the hilarious sketches at the end(best part of the movie, no matter what anyone says). Some of the sketches are a little sick, so this film isn't for the easily offended. This film is pretty funny, although it has no plot which drags it down a bit. 7 out of 10.

Their worst

[13Funbags · 2/10 · 30 July 2018]

I don't know what they were going for here. Were they out of good ideas or did they think this was some heavy stuff? I do know that it's not good.

Cheech & Chong are obviously not everyones taste, but...

[gelefiche · 19 April 2002]

Cheech & Chong are obviously not everyones taste, but I for one, think that they are two of a kind, that deserve more recognition from those in the, so called 'know'. This little gem is yet more proof, that these guys are as funny today as they where twenty years ago. Sex, drugs & hippy wierd stuff, at it's best.

What is wrong with critics?

[The_Juggalo5588 · 7/10 · 6 June 2007]

First off, unlike the person who's comment is the main comment for this film. in this film the stoner humor is all there and then some. they have all kinds of funny jokes and skits. and the solution to the bankrupt film festival was not a drug sale. but a show of there famous skits. and honestly i fell over laughing during this entire movie. I've never laughed harder at anything in my life as to some of the scenes in this movie. like for example, queer wars, or the dogs Herbie and Ralf. lol, forget a serious critics asinine comments, this film is simply put a simple comedy that everyone who likes cheech and chong should see. its not unique, its not high tech, its not complicated. its simple and funny. and thats what a comedy is all about. after all, look at kiss, the bands name says it all. because it stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. so if you want it simple, and funny to boot. this is a film for you.

You must be jokin'

[Tito-8 · 1/10 · 29 October 1998]

Cheech and Chong plunge to new depths in this lackluster comedy, a film so bad, it makes their "Nice Dreams" film seem like a classic. Particularly awful is the concert footage at the end, which is about as funny as a savage beating. Watch at your own risk.

Cheech and Chong's fifth film: Still Smokin.

[Captain_Couth · 7/10 · 17 August 2005]

Still Smokin (1983) was the fifth film that starred Cheech and Chong. Following their road trip film THINGS ARE TOUGH ALL OVER. This is more like a concert promo film. Many of the skits and sketches are taking from their comedy albums. The duo is in The Netherlands. They were invited to host a film festival, but the company hosting it is running out of money. The duo decides to put on a benefit show for the festival. Cheech and Chong become a huge success in Holland. Not only do they save the festival but they get to enjoy the ambiance and the delightful smoke of Amsterdam.

A step down from their last film. Times had changed. America was more fascinated with cocaine than pot. They had lost a lot of their fan base. Some thing had to change. So with their next film the duo went into a whole new direction. A period piece that aimed at a different market and audience.

Slightly recommended.

Worse than you can imagine

[cfprdj · 1/10 · 19 October 2006]

I am a Cheech and Chong Fan. Saw "Up in Smoke" a few months ago and I still think it is great. .....Still Smokin is not great. Not good. Not fair.....it is crap. A few funny moments, but basically no story. Most of the humour is not funny, even if you are stoned. Try "Up in Smoke" or the Next Movie, but not this one.

The basic plot/story is Cheech and Chong are mistaken for Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton at a film festival in Amterdam by people carrying signs with Burt and Dollys photos on them. ...and then it get worst.

You can look at my voting history and I have rated over 1500 movies...there are very few ones...98% of my votes are 6 and up...I like movies of all kinds..except crap. THis is crap...Don't waste your time.

Hey come on! It's funny!

[chengiz · 9/10 · 7 August 2000]

This is an incredibly funny film! More like a series of wacky sketches rather than a movie with a plot, but great fun nonetheless. We were all falling out of our chairs laughing. Cheech and Chong are awfully talented! The dog routine, the invisible man, the hairy palm, the E.T. routine.. I saw the movie day before yesterday and I still cant hold back my laughter when I remember those scenes! These guys should have made a TV series, they are awesome!

Slow start - excellent ending

[john_d0e · 6/10 · 14 January 2002]

"Still Smokin'" is a slow starter. For the first 40 minutes nothing really happens, they just goof around in a hotel room.

The last half of the movie isn't bad at all. There's a lot of cheap laughs and that's what this movie is all about. If you expect something as advanced as a plot, your going to be disappointed.

If they'd just cut the first half out, it would have been the best Cheech & Chong movie...

This Film Should Be Still Smoking in a Camp Fire.

[anaconda-40658 · 1/10 · 9 June 2015]

Still Smokin (1983): Dir: Thomas Chong / Cast: Richard "Cheech" Marin, Thomas Chong, Carol van Herwijnen, Carla van Amstel, Susan Hahn: Sequel to Up in Smoke that seems to applaud the idea that these two comics are still smoking weed, but it also indicates lack of change. It could have made due with the idea that Tommy Chong and Richard "Cheech" Marin were ridiculously mistaken for Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton but unfortunately that joke is more in passing. The film consists of our dope smoking duo dreaming up worthless sketches and chasing a maid around the hotel room. Chong isn't exactly handling things well behind the camera either. As director he presents something that any student can make with a cheap camcorder. There is not a shred of artistic talent in existence here. Cheech and Chong performing these skits are about as enjoyable as jamming your fingers in the car door. We do not care about their stupid adventure unlike the appeal they did sustain in Up in Smoke. There are a few supporting players entering in and out although none of them will likely gain much praise for this. Susan Hahn enters as a hotel maid but likely realizes quickly that the one thing that needed cleaned out was the entire script. It celebrates the declining quality of Cheech and Chong films so instead of lighting a joint why not celebrate by lighting this pathetic film on fire. Score: 1 / 10

Not what I expected...

[El Duderino · 24 December 1999]

After seeing Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke, I thought that Still Smokin' would be just as hilarious. It turns out I was way wrong and I was very disappointed at the quality of this film. Among the awful cast, the transitions to and from dream sequences were so confusing that I wasn't sure which part was the actual film and which part was the dream sequence. Occasionally the film would make me start to laugh, but then Cheech would become some annoying character that I just wanted to slap. Cheech and Chong really let me down with this one- but I'm not too upset because there will always be Up In Smoke.

Awful

[watje62 · 1/10 · 30 June 2006]

This movie is really not worth seeing, and not even funny. A total waste of time and money. When you see it don't buy it!

The only thing I liked was the fact that I lived in Amsterdam around 1983, and I got the feeling of my younger years back. But that still made it not worth seeing.

The problem with this summary is that I really do not know what to tell more. It is really not even funny for a 3 year old.

There is not much of a storyline, and the humor is awful and the movie totally boring.

I have to enter 10 lines and I really don't know what to say anymore.

A Bit Hit And Miss

[damianphelps · 6/10 · 14 January 2022]

Its still a great Cheech N Chong movie but lacks a little compared to their other films.

The concert part of the film is the best feature of the film providing the highlights.

A C n C fan will always get a kick out of it :)

It's bad

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 3/10 · 2 June 2023]

It's just upsetting and kind of shocking how bad these sequels keep getting. I keep wanting to give them a chance. I keep hoping the critics are just being snobby about dumb comedy. I continually remind myself the first one was funny, and the second had its moments.

But this is the fifth Cheech & Chong movie, and it's just sad how the (kind of) mighty have fallen. Every time a new one starts, I'm on board for about 10-20 minutes, and then the schtick wears out, and things just trudge along until the runtime gets to 90 minutes and then it ends.

These are becoming about as bad as people say they are. To paraphrase the eldest child of Logan Roy, I guess every series dies, and today, it is Cheech & Chong that has done so.

Out of breath.

[lost-in-limbo · 3/10 · 3 August 2006]

Cheech and Chong head to Amsterdam after being invited to attend a film festival, but there happens to be a strange case of mistaken identity. They were expecting Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton, but Cheech and Chong go ahead with the trip despite that of the Manager's grave concerns over the debacle. So, the duo decides they would perform a show for the festival. Where they spend their time lazing about in the hotel, checking out hot spots and dreaming up skits that they can perform.

Oh man, how awkward and self-indulgent can this get. I loved the first three films; "Up in Smoke", "Next Movie" and "Nice Dreams". But for this outing, everything about is simply in shambles. And to think I was going to purchase it. Phew, that was a close shave! How to describe it… embarrassing and tired. As I sat there, I found it to get less funny with its forced humour that got too silly and became stale far too quickly. From watching their other films, I knew there wouldn't be much of a story with individual skits making up the feature. What we got here, is simply a bland holiday gig for the clownish, two stoners; Cheech and Chong to get up to trouble in Amsterdam and actually play themselves in some dreamed-up episodes that they could perform in their stand-up live show at the end of the film. Too bad I found it mostly boring and the support performances just make you cringe. Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin are so-so, it's just the material they have come up with, equals such lacking and disappointing results with too few successful stints of humour. Some skits go on for too long. Even the humour has even less do with drugs here, and goes for infantile cracks and beyond crude remarks and actions. Sure, I wouldn't mind it, but I didn't find all of it remotely amusing.

It couldn't get anymore poor than this. A total drag that's straining for laughs.

Nope

[natemansur · 2/10 · 12 August 2021]

A poor attempt at an SNL style sketch show spoofing famous people and characters.

Lots of Good Chuckles

[barronius38-1 · 8/10 · 20 February 2008]

Okay...here are my comments regarding a lot of the other reviews. The people who gave it very few stars and didn't find it that funny, obviously must be either (a) very young; or (b) haven't heard Cheech & Chong's records (before they even made movies).

The plot isn't that terrific (Cheech and Chong get mistaken for Burt Reynold's and Dolly Parton in Amsterdam). But that is not what carries the movie. What carries the movie is that they do a lot of their old skits from their records ("Hey Margaret", "Let's Make a Dope Deal"; "Blind Melon Chitlin'", etc).

People have to remember that before "Up in Smoke" (fairly funny) and "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie" (pretty hilarious), they had put out a bunch of album's that were genuinely funny. So to see them do the skits from their old records brought back fond memories that people could do humor through vinyl (yes, they were on LP's and 8-tracks way back then).

It also had some of the most terrific skits (like "Queer Wars" - with Luke Streetwalker and his faithful companion, Dougie) that had some of the best jokes around:

"You just want to go to the Emperor's Ball to see that Hans Solo...... Hans Solo you don't know what their doing!!!!"

Priceless stuff.

I guess if some of the reviewer's heard Cheech and Chong's very early works, they might have given this movie a higher review.

What happened

[cartermansfieldcj · 2/10 · 22 July 2021]

I was really getting into the movie, the real movie lasts about 30 minutes. After that, the foreshadowing begins. Tommy Chong does black face, and then it's just skits. It's like they gave up, not even half way through. I was so bored I had to start skipping scenes, the movie ended before anything started up again.

Would I recommend the beginning of the film? Yeah, it's well shot, has good energy, and I enjoyed what there was. But I can't forgive this film for not just being another Cheech And Chong movie. I loved every film I've seen so far, up to this point, but the last parts have aged awfully and just feel mean spirited and distracting from the chemistry between Cheech And Chong.

The Stage

[tedg · 13 February 2006]

I saw this on a double bill with "Downfall." Similar films in a way.

The idea here is that Cheech and Chong play themselves, skit comedians. That they are in Holland is incidental. The setup is there only so that they can do a stage show at the end.

In between we have "imagined" skits. Many of them. And a few of the episodes in the story proper reference the stage. For instance Cheech wants to screw the hotel maid and is (for other reasons) disguised at ET. He hides in the closet amid stuffed animals. It was the only laugh in this whole thing.

Yes, that's right, they have hundreds of jokes and none of them funny.

So you need to be content (if you've been tricked into watching this) with the notions of performance about performance. Every skit has this theme. So in this movie, we'll have a stage show, or a TeeVee show or a movie, each one of which makes fun of another.

The same notion was used in the next generation of stoner movie, "Wayne's World." Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

needs more smokin

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 2 December 2017]

Cheech (Cheech Marin) and Chong (Tommy Chong) arrive in Amsterdam to attend a film festival. The organizer was actually expecting Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. The festival funding has been stolen and nobody there knows Cheech & Chong. The guys have a wacky European adventure.

The movie needs a McGuffin. They need to go on a road trip or something. E.T. is kinda fun but it's a rare laugh. The amateur movie bit has limitations. It's a movie struggling to find a point. For a Cheech & Chong movie in Amsterdam, it could do with a lot more smoking. It doesn't have enough which leaves the meandering pointless. The duo does fantasy skits which are rarely funny and mostly boring (unless you're doing the smoking for C&C). This may be good for fans but not many others.

Dreadful...

[eskimosound · 3/10 · 20 October 2020]

So the title says Still Smoking...they shouldn't be...it's a boring, dreadful movie. Not at all funny. Avoid, you will be disappointed.