Squanderers (1996)

The late 1980s and early 1990s were a crazy time for movies.  In horror, the decline of the teen slasher was in full swing.  Computer effects were being improved so that they would soon be able to usurp practical effects as the popular choice.  Stars of the 1970s and 1980s were going into more family fare like Kindergarten Cop, Cop and a Half, Top Dog, and Over the Top.  And the family members of the stars were trying to make their own careers in the movie business, to varying degrees of success.

One of the movies starring family members of more famous people was Squanderers, also known by the title Money to Burn.  There’s a lot to discuss about the movie, which will mostly involve my descriptions of what I remember seeing.  This post might feel disjointed at times.  It will have spoilers.  There were so many things that left me baffled, stunned, and various other past tense verbs.  The movie was bonkers.

So, what’s it about?  Let’s start at the beginning.  Kevin (Jerry Spicer) was a twenty-something guy living with his parents.  His mother wasn’t happy with the situation, calling him a burnout and saying that he hung out with two bums.  Things were about to change.  Kevin found himself a new job as a security man who watched cameras that scanned parking lots.  On his first night, he witnessed the police arresting a man that they thought had a suitcase full of money from some shady dealing.  He didn’t, though.  He had already switched it out.  Kevin knew where, and that would kickstart the story.

The reason I’m laying this out is because it seemed at this point that Kevin was the main character of Squanderers.  We followed him through his life for the first fifteen or twenty minutes.  He witnessed the police situation.  He knew where the money was hidden.  He would steal the money.  Yet, the movie that followed these moments did not have Kevin as the main character.  After stealing the money, he would give it to his friends and agree to meet up later.  He was only in one more scene.

The movie I would most compare to this 1998’s Enemy of the State.  Even then, the comparison is minimal.  The catalysts of the stories were the same in that one character had something that the bad guys wanted.  He passed it off to another character, and the movie followed the character that the something was passed off to.  It was the money suitcase in Squanderers, and it was the video in Enemy of the State.  The difference between how the two movies handled that beat was what made one good and one bad.  In Enemy of the State, the main character was Robert Dean (Will Smith).  He was the character being shown throughout the beginning of the movie, with bits and pieces of Daniel Zavitz (Jason Lee) popping up.  The audience already knew Robert Dean when Daniel Zavitz slipped him the video.  It was Dean’s story, with Zavitz only coming into it to pass off the item of desire.  Squanderers followed Kevin, the guy passing off the item, instead of the people who would possess the item through the rest of the movie.  That caused a striking contrast when the main characters changed twenty minutes into the movie.  Kevin was not the main character.  His friends were.

As for the friends, that was where the family members of movie stars came into play.  The two friends were John (Chad McQueen) and Scott (Don Swayze).  Both had notable roles throughout their careers, but Chad McQueen was really only known for his low budget work and his role in The Karate Kid as one of Johnny Lawrence’s buddies.  His career never took off beyond that, even with having been the child of Steve McQueen.  Don Swayze fared a little better.  He looked like his brother, Patrick Swayze, and although his 1980s and 1990s career had about as much success as Chad McQueen’s, his turn of the millennium work was a little more notable.  He went from the low budget world to some high profile HBO work.  Swayze still isn’t a star, but he gets steady work, even if it’s nowhere near how big his brother was.

John and Scott took the money that Kevin had left them with and began spending it on expensive things.  They wanted to impress women.  The movie got a little carried away with their spending, and never acknowledged how much money they spent.  The suitcase had 300 thousand dollars in it.  They were handing people wads of cash, buying cars like there was no tomorrow, and even bought a waterfront house.  Maybe money could stretch that far in 1996, when Squanderers was released, but that seems like too little cash for them to make all of those purchases.  They brought women home by using the money and there ended up being multiple sex scenes.  Eventually, their fun would come to an end.  Lieutenant Ford (Joe Estevez) began investigating the missing money and all signs pointed to John, Scott, and Kevin.

Joe Estevez was the third family member of a more famous star that was in Squanderers as well as numerous other low budget movies of the time.  He is the brother of Martin Sheen, which then makes him the uncle of Charlie Sheen, Ramon Estevez and Emilio Estevez.  Renee Estevez of Sleepaway Camp II is also his niece.  That’s a lot of family connections, since the entire family seems to be in the Hollywood business.  Joe is still doing work to this day, having recently appeared in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance.  It might not seem like a big movie appearance, but Joe Estevez is the Daniel Baldwin of his family.

Lieutenant Ford was investigating the missing suitcase because the money belonged to the mob.  He wanted it so that he could take down some of the mob members.  John and Scott met up with him at Kevin’s house after hearing that Kevin committed suicide.  That’s right.  The guy who seemed to be the main character at the beginning of the movie was dead.  His friends didn’t believe that he would kill himself.  Ford was at Kevin’s house investigating the suspicious circumstances of the death.  Scott and John wouldn’t tell him anything and instead headed out on their own.

The rest of Squanderers involved the man who was arrested earlier chasing John and Scott around Los Angeles because he wanted his money.  The only thing I want to write about from this part is the one scene in which Kevin returned to the movie.  I said earlier that he was in one more scene.  After the friends decided that Kevin had been murdered, a scene played that showed some of what had happened.  The scene felt entirely out of place.  It didn’t show his death in any way near to what they described.  It was mentioned that he had been shot.  The scene showed the mob guy hanging Kevin out of a helicopter.  Nowhere near the same.  So, that’s what Kevin returned for.

Squanderers was a crazy low budget action movie that wasn’t good at all.  It took three relatives of more famous actors and gave them a bunch of money to burn (heh, the alternate title) and let them do whatever they wanted.  It ended up feeling like a waste of time.  Most of that could be placed on the story. It was just two dudes spending a lot of money to get women.  Or it could be the fact that the main characters changed twenty minutes in without it benefiting the story.  Whatever happened, the movie was bad.  That’s why I watched it.

These notes will be better than the movie:

• Squanderers was suggested by @J0shArcher, who also suggested Torque and Metal Man.
• Sleepaway Camp II and Top Dog were mentioned in this post.
• Will Smith was mentioned in this post.  He was in Winter’sTale.
• Patrick Swayze was mentioned briefly.  He was in Road House.
• Squanderers featured Tom Parker, an actor who was also in Howard the Duck.
• Julie Strain returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Squanderers.  She was previously featured in Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV.
• Melanie Good made a second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Squanderers after showing up in Jack Frost 2: Attack of the Mutant Killer Snowman.
• Kymberly Herrin was in Squanderers.  She was also in Road House.
• Finally, Joe Estevez was in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance, which was featured a few weeks ago.  He was also in Squanderers.
• Have you seen Squanderers?  You probably haven’t but I needed to ask anyway.  Have you seen any of the early 1990s or late 1980s low budget action featuring relatives of more famous people?  Let me know about this stuff in the comments.
• The comments are also a good place to let me know what movies I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Hit me up and let me know.  If not in the comments, find me on Twitter to tell me.
• I have a snapchat account where I sometimes share clips and images from the bad movies I watch.  Do you want to see this stuff?  Add me.  jurassicgriffin.
• The final thing for me to leave a note about is what movie is coming up next week.  Sharknado 5: Global Swarming is out today, but that’s not what I’ll be writing about.  I’m going to be watching Remote Control.  I’m not entirely sure what it’s about.  It was another suggested movie.  This will be an interesting watch, I think.  We’ll see next week when I put up the post.  See you then.