Hot Tub... is `a fucking time machine!

Whether a Delorian, a TV or a phone booth, already the most unusual objects were used in Hollywood to let movie heroes travel through space and time. Now they are joined by another time machine that promises to be a particularly wet and merry treat: "Hot Tub - The Jacuzzi... is `a fucking time machine!"

The film with this lyrical title tells the story of Adam (John Cusack), who once experienced the best times of his youth with his friends Lou (Rob Corddry) and Nick (Craig Robinson). But those days are long gone, everyday frustrations now dominate the lives of the men who have almost completely lost sight of each other. When Rob seemingly tries to take his own life, Adam and Nick decide to take their suicidal buddy to the very ski resort where they once partied the wildest. With Adam's nephew Jacob in tow, the idea is to get their lives back on track for a weekend.

But the joy is abruptly dampened when the former party mile turns out to be a now run-down ghost town and there's little sign of good cheer. There is only one thing that helps: with lots of alcohol into the hot tub. What Adam, Lou, Nick and Jacob don't know..: the hot tub is a damn time machine that sends the four of them straight back to the 80s, to a night that decisively shaped the course of the friends' lives...

John Cusack, himself the star of several 80s teen comedies, and director Steve Pink met while filming "High Fidelity" and have been dying to work together again ever since. So this absurdist trip back in time to the '80s seemed like the perfect fun project. Pink, who had previously delivered a decent comedy with "S.H.I.T. - Die High School GmbH" despite its silly title, in itself brings the perfect prerequisites for a comical as well as endearing homage to the 80s. Unfortunately, however, the end result turned out nowhere near as amusing as the basic idea would lead one to hope.

Because right from the first scene, in which a dog gets a car key smeared with feces pulled out of his butt, it's made clear what level the gags are on. True, the nasty 80s set is very well done and a very amusing running gag in which Crispin Glover, known from "Back to the Future", plays an important role always provides good laughs. But the unnecessarily over-the-top distribution of a wide variety of bodily fluids and cheap sex quotations cause any moment, no matter how good, to wither in a jumble of lowbrows. Given the talent that John Cusack in particular has shown time and again in the past, and that Steve Pink obviously has as well, this is a bitter disappointment.

Surely, if you like light US comedies of the cruder variety and can laugh at the simplest pee-pee jokes, you can safely step into this whirlpool. All others should definitely keep their hands off the time travel to the 80s!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp