Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s July 11, 1986, and we’re off to see Club Paradise.
Club Paradise
Apparently everyone wanted to escape Chicago in 1986.
Jack Moniker (Robin Williams) wants to give up being a firefighter in Chicago and buy a small house in the Caribbean. He succeeds, and makes friend with the owner of a run-down resort. It seems, however, evil developers want to get their hands on it, and it’s up to Jack and his new-found friends to fend them off by any means necessary.
Remember Running Scared from a couple weeks ago? That was about Chicago cops wanting to move to Key West. What was up with all of the Chicago civil servants leaving the city in 80s movies?
With Robin Williams, Peter O’Toole, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, Brian Doyle Murray and more being directed by Harold Ramis, you would think this movie would kill you with laughter.
It doesn’t.
There was a laugh here or there, but it had too much going on. There was no need for the evil developer plot. It would have been better suited to just having the club being down on its luck and going with an almost Meatballs-style approach. Make the guets and staff a bit more off-kilter. Instead it just felt like it didn’t know what it wanted to be.
Tons of potential, a few laughs, but a lot of missed opportunities.
Where to watch: Available to stream.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on July 18, 2026, with Aliens and Vamp.
