MOVIE · 1980

Stir Crazy

ComedyCrime111 min

Out of work and out of options, Skip Donahue and Harry Monroe leave New York for California, only to get blamed for a bank robbery after thieves steal the woodpecker costumes they were wearing at a promotion. Gene Wilder's Skip and Richard Pryor's Harry are railroaded into prison, where a sadistic warden, unpredictable inmates, and the pair's own clashing temperaments turn a bad break into a full-scale mess. Directed by Sidney Poitier, the film builds its comedy around Wilder and Pryor's frazzled, back-and-forth partnership as two ordinary guys trying to stay afloat inside a system that has them marked from the start.