This movie is silly and very short of being a funny movie. Unhappy 'easterners' are not pleased with being out west; so they hire a drunk wagon master(John Candy)to lead them back east. Sight gags were just not funny enough to carry this one. And Richard Lewis gets on your nerves very quickly; but then I honestly don't like him at anything he does. Ed Lauter is hilarious as the bumbling villain.
The movie was dedicated to Candy. He died from a massive heart attack ten days before the movie was completed. A stand in and digital enhancement enabled Candy's character to be seen in the final scenes. Candy was a very good comedian and gave us some real good knee slapping, belly laughs in his career. This movie was just not the caliber of his best.
Also in the film, you will recognize: William Sanderson, Gailard Sartain, Ethan Phillips, Ellen Greene and Rodney A. Grant.
Wagons East
1994
Action / Adventure / Comedy / Western
Wagons East
1994
Action / Adventure / Comedy / Western
Plot summary
In the 1860s Wild West, a ragged bunch of misfit settlers decides they cannot stand living in their current situation and they hire a grizzled cowboy to take them on a journey back East to their hometowns.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Head 'em up and try to move 'em back where they came from.
The west is too wild for this bunch
It seems perfectly obvious that any number of folks who took Horace Greeley's advice about going west had second thoughts. A lot just weren't cut out for the frontier and I don't doubt many returned east.
It is to those wise souls who knew when to quit that Wagons East is dedicated to. In one of our small western bergs a group makes a collective decision to form a Wagon Train and they hire the inebriated John Candy as their wagonmaster to travel east. Candy himself at first can't quite acclimate to this new thinking but eventually does.
But the notion of heading back east violates the thinking of the establishment and those making a living on the pioneer spirit. At the same time the Indians see this as a good thing. Makes for some strange alliances.
This was John Candy's last film and lucky we got it completed as he died during the making. I'm sure he had hopes of this turning into another Blazing Saddles. That would have taken Mel Brooks's zaniness.
My favorite in the film is the gay bookseller John C. McGinley who went west for the men, but found them a bit rough for his taste. His scene with the naive and hunky Lochlyn Munro is priceless.
Not a comedy masterpiece, Wagons East is still good fun and viewing.
John Candy's Best Film... And His Last
After a series of tragedies in the old west, a group of settlers decide they've had enough and want to return east. So they hire a drunken wagon master (John Candy) to guide them. But the wagon master has a dark past... and the government will stop at nothing to make sure this crew never reaches St. Louis.
I want to lay it on the line and say this is John Candy's best film, or at least very close. I always disliked him as the bumbling, annoying fool. I have never been a fan of his films. But I actually enjoyed this one and it was definitely Candy that helped make it happen. Too bad it had to be a western. With both Candy and Chris Farley dying while making Western comedies, I hope future overweight comedians learn to stay away from the genre, and maybe horses altogether. (Then again, John Belushi died anyway.)
The other notable actor was John C. McGinley, who played the flamboyant book salesman Julian Rogers. McGinley is great on "Scrubs" and was good in pretty much everything he's ever done (including "The Guardian", which I didn't care for). But this is his best role, hands down. While this might be Candy's, I know for a fact it's McGinley's. He was born to be a homosexual gunslinger. The fact he is not one in real life is very disconcerting for me.
As for the movie itself, it wasn't the funniest thing I ever saw, but it was good, and enjoyable. I guess I can't think of anything really nice to say about it. It's a dumb sort of humor, but not dumb offensive or anything, just dumb in the sense of what "Saturday Night Live" used to pump out. You know, just dumb. Watch it. I guess.