Misplaced Pages

The Shrimp on the Barbie

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
1990 film by Alan Smithee

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "The Shrimp on the Barbie" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
The Shrimp on the Barbie
DVD cover
Directed byMichael Gottlieb (as Alan Smithee)
Written byGrant Morris
Ron House
Alan Shearman
Produced byR. Ben Efraim
StarringCheech Marin
Emma Samms
Vernon Wells
Bruce Spence
Carole Davis
CinematographyJames Bartle
Edited byFred A. Chulack
Music byPeter D. Kaye
Distributed byUnity Pictures
Release date
  • 31 August 1990 (1990-08-31)
Running time87 minutes
CountriesNew Zealand
United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$5.5 million
Box office$458,996 (USA)

The Shrimp on the Barbie, released in Australia as The Boyfriend from Hell, is a 1990 comedy film directed by Michael Gottlieb (under the pseudonym Alan Smithee) and starring Cheech Marin. The title is derived from a line in a 1980s series of popular ads starring Paul Hogan promoting tourism to Australia: "I'll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you". The film was a box office disaster, grossing only 1/10th of its budget.

Plot

Australian heiress Alexandra Hobart's father has disapproved of every boyfriend she has brought home to meet him, including her burly, life-of-the-party fiancé, Bruce. After a disastrous birthday party, Alexandra decides to challenge her father with the worst boyfriend she can find. She hires a down-on-his luck waiter from a Mexican restaurant in Sydney, Australia, named Carlos to masquerade as her new boyfriend to persuade her father into allowing her to marry Bruce. Needing the money to save the failing restaurant, Carlos agrees to the ruse; acting loud, belligerent and obnoxious, shocking everyone in the Hobart household and their high-society friends at a party with his crude behavior, warranting unwanted attention from Alex's eccentric cousin, Maggie in the process.

After a while however Alex discovers that in spite of his rather crass and unrefined ways Carlos is actually a very caring and sensitive person and she even finds herself falling for him and starts to see Bruce for the narcissistic fortune hunter he really is. Alex's father, however, doesn't buy the act, and hires a detective to photograph Bruce and Alex's best friend, Dominique in a compromising position. Carlos gets wind of the infidelity and, attempting to save Alexandra from being hurt, ends up assaulted by Bruce. Alex outs Bruce and Dominique at a party before racing to the airport to mend fences with Carlos. Hoping she's not too late, the plane called back to the airport by her father. Realizing how noble Carlos is, Mr Hobart invests in Carlos' restaurant thereby saving it from closing.

Principal Cast

References

  1. "AFI|Catalog".

External links

Films credited as having been directed by Alan Smithee
Films
Related pseudonyms
Films directed by Michael Gottlieb


Stub icon

This article related to a New Zealand film is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Stub icon

This film article about a 1990s comedy film is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Stub icon

This article related to an American film of the 1990s is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Categories:
The Shrimp on the Barbie Add topic