Opportunity Knocks is a 1990 comedy film directed by Donald Petrie (Mystic Pizza, Grumpy Old Men, Miss Congeniality, & Welcome to Mooseport). It was written by Mitchel Katlin (Doogie Howser M.D., Over the Top, & The Weber Show) & Nat Bernstein (Center of the Universe, Late Boomers, & 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd). It was produced by Brad Grey (The Departed, The Sopranos, The Cable Guy, & Just Shoot Me!) & Mark Gordon (Saving Private Ryan, Ray Donovan, A Simple Plan, & Criminal Minds). The budget was $13 million & it grossed $11.3 million at the box office.
Con men Eddie Farrell (played by: Dana Carvey from Wayne’s World 1/2, Saturday Night Live, Trapped in Paradise, & Clean Slate) & Lou Pesquino (played by: Todd Graff from Death to Smoochy, Strange Days, & The Abyss) need cash fast so they pretend to be repair men sent to fix a gas leak. The con goes terribly wrong but they end up escaping from it. Eddie & Lou find an empty house that they decide to burglarize. When they learn from a message on the answering machine that the owner is out of the country & the man who was going to house-sit can’t make it so they stay the night there. The next day, Eddie & Lou are on the run from thugs sent by local gangster Sal Nichols (played by: James Tolkan from Back to the Future franchise, Top Gun, WarGames, & Dick Tracy). They get separated so Eddie takes refuge in the empty house. In the morning, Eddie meets Mona Malkin (played by: Doris Belack from What About Bob?, Tootsie, She-Devil, & *batteries not included), whose son owns the house. She assumes Eddie is her son’s friend Jonathan Albertson, the one supposed to house-sit. Eddie plays along & meets Mona’s businessman husband Milt (played by: Robert Loggia from Big, The Sopranos, Lost Highway, & Scarface) who offers him a job. Eddie decides to run a “love con” on Milt’s daughter Annie (played by: Julia Campbell from Dexter, Bounce, & Women in Prison) in order to gain access to Milt’s money. Lou gets captured by Nichols. Eddie with his aunt Connie (played by: Sally Gracie from Tales from the Darkside) & uncle Max (played by: Milo O’Shea from The Verdict, Theater of Blood, The Dream Team, & Barbarella) come up with a plan to get Nichols off their backs for good. Eddie ends up falling in love with Annie & enjoying her family’s company. Is he in too deep? or Will be able to get past all of these feelings before it hurts them????
Opportunity Knocks is one of the rare & first lead role projects with comedian Dana Carvey. He is hilarious as the ambitious con man & he takes full advantage of having his own film here. It’s a shame, he only got a few movies like this in his career. The script had a mix of everything in it. Lots of humor with some crime, drama, & romance. James Tolkan was a solid villain in Opportunity Knocks & he actually made the con man more likeable. He has busy year in 1990 with three major films & two television show appearances. Robert Loggia was used to playing roles like that at the time & he had a completely different character in this compared to those so they kinda reversed each other on this. It’s one of his best performances. Julia Campbell is beautiful, I am not surprised that Eddie fell in love with her because I kinda did when I first seen this back in the day. I am really surprised that she didn’t do that many movies after this. It had a good supporting cast with more than a few familiar faces from other known features. This one captures the 90s, you can tell when it was made without even looking it up. I’ve seen this a decent amount over the years & I always have lots of fun with it, RECOMMENDED!!!!
Let’s talk about the high definition presentation from Mill Creek Entertainment! This 1080p (1.85:1) transfer is from an older master. It’s an upgrade from the previous DVD & VHS releases but don’t expect reference quality or anything like that here. The English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track is okay. It’s not really the type of film that will make your speakers pound or really put your home system to the test. The dialogue is crystal clear & the music sounds good here. It has English SDH subtitles. There’s no extras on the disc. This is the first time Opportunity Knocks has been released on blu ray in the states thanks to the great folks at Mill Creek Entertainment. It’s a part of their “I Love the 90s” line. It has an retro VHS slipcover plus different artwork underneath it. It’s the quality you would expect from an older catalog title but for the bargain price it’s definitely worth adding to the collection. It’s available everywhere right now, CHECK IT OUT!!!!
