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April 01, 2008

Mr. Nanny

Hulk vs the Hulkamaniacs

By Ben

This post is a part of the 2nd Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon

After randomizing this year's submissions, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my White Elephant Film Blogathon assignment starred the one and only Terry Bollea. If you're wondering who this Bollea character is, it's probably because he's better known to the adoring public as the twelve-time world champion professional wrester, Hulk Hogan. Of Hogan's many classic films, I was blessed with the task of watching and reviewing the 1993 film, Mr. Nanny. Prior to this, the only Hogan film that I had seen that I could recall was No Holds Barred. Somehow, other works in his oeuvre such as Santa With Muscles and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain had eluded me and I was in no hurry to add them to my Netflix queue. Thanks to this blogathon, Mr. Nanny not only made it on my list, it was even given the "move to top of my queue" treatment.

In doing research for my review of the film I developed a profound respect Mr. Hogan and the work that he has done throughout his career. Now fifty-four years old, Hogan has lived an eventful life by anyone's standards. In March of 1985, Hogan teamed up with Mr. T in the main event at the first ever WrestleMania. The tag-team duo defeated Hogan's rivals "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (star of They Live) and "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff. The events of March 31st, 1985 played an integral role in developing the Hogan empire. Just a year before, Hogan had defeated the Iron Sheik and become the WWF's first Southern-born champion. Upon Hogan's victory, commentator Gorilla Monsoon proclaimed "Hulkamania is here!" With the main event at WrestleMania, Hogan made sure Hulkamania was here to stay. From the mid-eighties through the early-nineties, Hulkamania would reign supreme and amongst its many victims were wrestling legends such as Andre the Giant, Ric Flair, and Randy Savage. During this period, Hogan had a headlock on the public imagination and served as an inspiration to Hulkamaniacs both young and old.

In the early nineties, Hogan's contributions to American society took on much greater weight as the Persian Gulf War began and people were looking to Hogan for more than just guidance in how to stand up for yourself. The nation was at war and Hogan was who many Hulkamaniacs looked to for comfort. With our brave soldiers fighting overseas, the American public needed a figure that they could look up to that represented the grittiness and strength that was going to get them through those trying times. In response, Hogan defended the stars and stripes against Iraqi-sympathizing Sgt. Slaughter and perhaps made professional wrestling's greatest contribution to American patriotism. The only other moment that comes to mind even remotely rivaling the cultural importance of Hogan's actions might be when Lex Luger bodyslammed Yokozuna on the deck of the USS Intrepid on the Fourth of July.

Unfortunately for Hogan and professional wrestling, the influence of the sport upon popular culture has waned in the past decade with the sport's most notable contribution being either The Rock or D-Generation X's "suck it" partnered with the appropriate chopping of the areas adjacent to the groin as one thrusts their pelvis forward. Such contributions have done much to aid the development of America's current generation of over-sexualized youth while doing very little to provide the comforting presence and respectable role models that heroes like Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior did.

As the second war in Iraq continues to rage on with no end in site and the economy slipping into a recession, it's no wonder that Hogan is back on the mind. Surely we're not so naive as to believe that Hulkamania is going to succeed where so many politicians have failed but it's nice to have someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, even if the sleeve is attached to the shirt he just ripped off his of chest. It seems television executives have also caught a whiff of this unspoken desire for a dependable hero on behalf of the public. Recently, Hogan can be seen on TV hosting the revival of American Gladiators or as the subject of the reality show Hogan Knows Best. In the dog eat dog world of entertainment, it's a safe bet that Hogan wouldn't have been given these opportunities to revive his career were it not for the public's desire to see him make a comeback.

Evidence of the success of Hulkamania's revival can be found in the fact that Mr. Nanny wasn't even the only Hogan film suggested for this year's blogathon. The other film was Hogan's 1991 sci-fi family comedy, Suburban Commando. Not having seen the film myself, I consulted the Internet Movie Database where the impressively articulate yet succinct plot summary reads:

"Shep Ramsey is an interstellar hero, righting wrongs, etc. His ship is damaged after a fight with an interstellar nasty and he must hide out on Earth until it can recharge. He leaves his power suit at home, but still finds himself unable to allow wrongs to go unrighted and so mixes it up with bad drivers, offensive paperboys, muggers and the like. Then the family he's staying with finds his power suit and the father tries it on."

Unsurprisingly, both are films in which Hogan joins a regular family as a benevolent figure who protects them from harm. In Suburban Commando, he's an interstellar hero who rights wrongs and in Mr. Nanny, Hogan plays Sean Armstrong, a washed up professional wrestler who ends up working as a bodyguard for the children of Alex Mason, Sr., a top level executive at a weapons firm. Mason Sr. is in possession of a secret microchip that's being used in a high-tech missile defense system and Thanatos, the bad guy who has a steel bowl affixed to the top of his head (which he polishes in a particularly unsettling scene), wants to steal it.

What seems like a rather straightforward assignment for Armstrong turns out to be a nightmare when he meets the two children, Alex Jr. and his younger sister Kate (played by Madeline Zima who was nominated for two Young Artist Awards for her role in this film). Because their mother died, the children have a history of troubled relationships with their nannies. Their father's immense wealth is also making life at school difficult; in one particularly poignant scene, Alex Jr. points out that "it's hard enough fitting in without everyone knowing we have a Rolls Royce." The two kids have it rough and Armstrong can see that but he finds sympathy hard to muster at first. What the children do have going for them are some great genes. Alex Jr. is a scientific genius and has a laboratory in his room where he builds various devices he uses to torture nannies until they leave. Kate's no dummy herself, together the children are experts in manipulation and appear capable of tricking anyone into walking into even the most obvious traps.

When Armstrong first arrives at the Mason mansion, what results is a series of pranks played on him worthy of Home Alone but played out with a deviousness laced with such sociopathic glee that it instead brought to mind films like Saw or Hostel. Torture-porn for kids was all I could think as Armstrong survived one prank after another, almost all of which would surely be fatal were it not for Hogan's exceptional physique. When Armstrong asks the maid in the house what the deal with the kids is, she merely replies "just your typical all-American family." It's a rather incisive comment from the maid that Armstrong takes to heart as he begins to warm to the children. At the same time, they realize he's not about to back down.

As the relationship between Armstrong and the children improves, we learn that their father had been spoiling them as a result of his own guilt for not having spent enough time with them. All they really want is for someone to pay attention to them and to punish them. Yes, punish them. According to Armstrong, the kids just want to be punished and sure enough he's right. Just to make sure, Armstrong yells at them and finds that the kids take immense pleasure in being reprimanded, going so far as to sit in the dark without a peep until dismissed by him. This revelation adds a disturbing sado-masochistic element to what is already a strange film. When Mason Sr. gets home to find his kids behaving like normal children he's as shocked as we are that Armstrong's theory worked.

Once the relationship with the children is patched up and Armstrong teaches Alex Sr. how to be a father to his children (yell at them but also tell them how much you love them), the other plot involving Thanatos picks up. Like the plot with the children, this story isn't well-developed enough to carry an entire film and, as a result, it ends up being the less entertaining half of a film made up of two disparate parts. The finale of the film involves the family being kidnapped by Thanatos and Armstrong coming to their rescue. Along the way we learn that Thanatos and Armstrong have a history together and the steel bowl on top of Thanatos' head is the result of his scalp essentially having been ripped off in a fight with Hogan. After the customary reacquainting of former arch-rivals, Thanatos sics his henchmen on Armstrong who quickly disposes of them. It should be noted that the henchmen are an Asian who knows martial arts, a German strongman, and a vaguely Middle Eastern, bearded guy with a gun. I don't think it's a coincidence that the three henchmen are symbols of the United States' enemies in World War II and the first war in Iraq.

By the time the credits roll, the chip is safe, the family is back together, and order has been restored. Despite being two films in one, Mr. Nanny clocks in at a merciful eighty-four minutes and is ultimately an uneven film with its greatest success being the explanation of Hogan's appeal. If anything, this film alone should be evidence enough that he should be declared a national treasure.

Hogan's performance in the film is about what you would expect from a professional wrestler, it's brilliant. The scene in which Kate forces him to kiss her toy doll is a rare glimpse into the softer side of a man who makes his living showing off his awesome manliness. Coupled with the outbursts of anger that immediately follow the children's various pranks, Hogan displays a range of emotion explored with a level of subtlety that would give Daniel Day-Lewis a run for his money. While the film isn't going to find a place in any critic's greatest films list, it does fit comfortably in the body of work that Hogan has amassed both on and off the screen. With his big heart and even bigger muscles, Hogan comes to the rescue and makes America a safer more comfortable place for the "typical all-American family."

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