One of my best friends and my partner with Oh Man Disney (check us out on TikTok and YouTube) insisted recently that I watch See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989).  For a few days, he kept talking about how funny it is and that I needed to watch it.  Having never viewed it, I told him I would for The Legionnaire.  Given that I can actually vaguely recall trailers from some dim area of my memory, I was somewhat anticipating finally getting to look at a movie starring two of the comedic geniuses of the late twentieth century in Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.  The result aligns with a truth about expectations: reality rarely lives up to them.  Put more cinematically, the film is nowhere near as good as I hoped.

Like anyone else trying to cross a road, David “Dave” Lyons (Gene Wilder) hopes not to get hit by a car at the beginning of See No Evil, Hear No Evil.  He is the second half of the title.  Being deaf, he does not hear the truck bearing down on him as he is standing just off the curb.  Nearby to the verbal altercation that erupts between him and the driver is Wallace “Wally” Karew (Richard Pryor).  Wally thinks the angry words are being directed at him.  He is the first half of the title.  Being blind, he starts throwing punches in the air until his sister, Adele Karew (Kristen Childs), guides him down the steps of the subway.  He does not like to be coddled, though, holding a newspaper upside down on the train in order to blend in and not be singled out for his impairment.  They are on the way to the horse track because Wally is insistent that he spend his last $50 on a race.  When he loses, it goes along with his other gambling debts he owes to Scotto (John Capodice), a bookie.  Wally is confident, though, that he can get a job and pay what he owes.  To that end, he manages to wander up to the small convenience store Dave owns seeking a position.  Once they manage to work out their communication problems, with Dave being able to read lips, they become fast friends.  Wally invites his new boss to meet at a bar, and Dave helps his employee win a bar fight by calling out directions for punches.  The next day being Wally’s first on the job, Scotto manages to find out the store’s location and comes to collect.  Instead of Wally, Scotto encounters Dave.  Scotto is not the only person arriving at the stand.  Walking up to Scotto is Eve (Joan Severance), who works with Kirgo (Kevin Spacey), and together they are the ones in charge of the money Scotto is supposed to collect.  However, they are after something else in Scotto’s possession: a gold coin he dumps into a box of coins on the counter prior to Eve’s arrival.  Before they can get far, she shoots and kills Scotto and makes off with his briefcase.  Dave did not hear it, and Wally trips over Scotto’s body, which is how Dave realizes something is amiss.  As they bend over the corpse, Dave comes up with the gun Eve shot Scotto with, and the police find it in his hand.  Dave and Wally are taken into custody, but Captain Emile Braddock (Alan North) will not believe their story about a woman being responsible.  He also has little patience in dealing with two men with special needs.  Meanwhile, Eve and Kirgo search Scotto’s bag and cannot find the coin.  Thinking that either Dave or Wally must have it, the criminals attempt to pose as lawyers to bail out the men.  It does not work, and Dave recognizes Eve by her legs, but they are again ignored.  This also means that their would-be assailants know where they are, so Dave and Wally escape the police station.  As Eve and Kirgo are trying to figure out their next move, Dave and Wally wander past their car.  Eve takes the coin and makes a phone call to the coin’s buyer, a mysterious person named Sutherland (Anthony Zerbe).  During the conversation, Dave is able to get that the location outside of the city where Eve and Kirgo are to make the exchange.  After evading Kirgo with some comedic tomfoolery, and stealing a police car that the handcuffed Dave must tell Wally how to drive, our . . . er, heroes(?) manage to also escape the police.  Wally then calls Eve for assistance and they make their way to a hotel where Eve and Kirgo are staying.  Dave and Wally get a room by posing as doctors for a conference taking place at the resort, and Dave is unexpectedly called upon to give a presentation.  While Adele distracts Kirgo by hitting his car with hers, Dave sneaks into their room to get the coin.  Unfortunately, in the shuffle Adele is captured by Eve and Kirgo and taken to Sutherland’s estate.  Dave and Wally attempt a rescue, which is partially successful, letting Adele go to bring the police to the mansion.  Unfortunately, Dave and Wally are caught in the process.  Sutherland, who also happens to be blind (because, why not?) kills Kirgo when the underling demands more money for the coin, which turns out to be some kind of superconductor instead of money.  There is a gunfight between Sutherland and Wally that is mildly funny before Dave is brought into the room with Eve.  She ends up shooting Sutherland and trying to get away in a helicopter.  However, she is stopped by Dave and Wally, and they are exonerated of all wrongdoing.  It concludes with them reminiscing about their adventures over ice cream cones in the park.

Ice cream cones are far more preferable to watching See No Evil, Hear No Evil.  Indeed, I wish I was eating sweets rather than writing this review.  In the moment, you see a movie and kind of go along with it.  Yet, as I kept writing the synopsis, I was getting to parts that had me wondering how I was going to describe it in a way that made sense.  I hope that is what I accomplished.  I am disappointed from a Catholic perspective that it was so nonsensical because there are some genuinely good moments in it.  It is meant to be a funny, but despite Dave and Wally’s desire to not be treated differently, they come to rely on one another.  It takes humility to realize when you need help, and that is hard for some, even those who evidently need it.  It means admitting that you are deficient in some way, even though that is what God did for us in the person of Jesus.  God humbled himself, taking on our humanity in order to bring us salvation.  In other words, we are redeemed by humility.  Further, when Jesus walked among us, he gathered to Him those with conditions like Dave and Wally.  In Mark 7:32-35, Jesus cures a deaf man, and in John 9:1-7, He brings sight to a man blind from birth.  These people had been marked for their conditions by society, which is something Dave and Wally want to avoid.  Indeed, they have trepidation about needing assistance from the other until Dave helps Wally fight.  Nonetheless, they come to accept each other and are better off for it.  There may be a lot of incomprehensible junk in this movie, but the fact that they emerge for their experience with the blessings of friendship is a gift.

There is a lot of junk in See No Evil, Hear No Evil, which is why it is rated R.  In addition to the foul language, it has its share of nudity in it.  I hope this one does not typify other films made by the duo that was Pryor and Wilder.  We shall see.  For now, you can skip this one.