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The Big Kahuna

The Big Kahuna

Comedy · Drama · 1999

Three salesmen working for a firm that makes industrial lubricants are waiting in the company's "hospitality suite" at a manufacturers' convention for a "big kahuna" named Dick Fuller to show up, in hopes they can persuade him to place an order that could salvage the company's flagging sales.

Movie details

The Big Kahuna

1999 Comedy · Drama 1h 30m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.8 / 10

Community rating

Three salesmen working for a firm that makes industrial lubricants are waiting in the company's "hospitality suite" at a manufacturers' convention for a "big kahuna" named Dick Fuller to show up, in hopes they can persuade him to place an order that could salvage the company's flagging sales.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Big Kahuna?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Heavy Traffic

Heavy Traffic

Animation · 1973

A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.

O Lucky Man!

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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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Crash

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

John Swanbeck

Written by

Roger Rueff

Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey

Larry Mann

Danny DeVito

Danny DeVito

Phil Cooper

Peter Facinelli

Peter Facinelli

Bob Walker

Paul Dawson

Paul Dawson

Bellboy

Christopher Donahue

Christopher Donahue

Bartender (uncredited)

R

Ron Komora

The Big Kahuna (uncredited)

F

Frank L. Messina

Business Man (uncredited)

Court is in session

Put The Big Kahuna on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.