Variety Staff
DECEMBER 31, 1986 | 11:00PM PT
Outrageous Fortune is well crafted, old-fashioned entertainment that takes some conventional elements, shines them up and repackages them as something new and contemporary. It’s a traditional male buddy film that has substituted women and the main plot device is that the two heroines are sleeping with the same man. Bette Midler and Shelley Long collide even before their affections do in an acting class given by the eminent Russian director Stanislov Korenowski (Robert Prosky). Long is a wealthy, spoiled dilettante while Midler last starred in Ninja Vixens. When the audience learns they’re sharing the same man (Peter Coyote) before they do, it’s a delicious moment complete with one image-shattering sight gag.
The film takes off as a chase picture with the girls following Coyote to New Mexico to demand a decision. They’re not the only ones looking for him. It seems the CIA is hot on his trail as is the KGB. To top things off, it turns out Korenowski is a Russian agent first and a director second.
Even when Leslie Dixon’s script sags and becomes a bit repetitious in the long New Mexico chase section, Midler and Long are never less than fun to watch.
