Discover Why Oscar Might Be Sylvester Stallone’s Most Underrated Comedy Gem

If you’re old enough to remember VHS tapes and action heroes with oiled-up biceps, you probably also remember the weird era when basically every action star tried to be funny at least once. It was like a contractual obligation. At the very top of this accidental comedy movement: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who somehow pulled it off and turned it into box office gold. But, as much as I respect Arnie’s comedic side, the internet and history have been weirdly harsh to Sylvester Stallone — especially when it comes to his own shot at comedy: John Landis’s Oscar. This is me waving the flag for this criminally underappreciated gangster farce.

How 'Action Guy Does Comedy' Became a Thing

Let’s set the stage. The trend really kicked off in the late 1970s when Clint Eastwood, then king of gritty tough guys, decided he’d had enough of looking angry and shooting people in westerns. So what did he do? He teamed up with an orangutan (no, really) for Every Which Way But Loose. This was a movie where Eastwood played a bareknuckle brawler whose best friend is a primate named Clyde, who (important detail) flips people off. You’d have thought career suicide, right?

But nope. The movie made over $100 million in 1978 dollars — easily Eastwood’s biggest hit up until then. It even spawned a sequel and kind of gave other action stars permission to try something 'against type.' Plus, it prompted Eastwood’s buddy Burt Reynolds to do his own genre shift.

Enter Arnold, Stage Left… Into a Comedy

Arnold paid attention to that whole monkey business. When he’d officially conquered the '80s as The Action Guy, he didn’t waste time trying to be funny too. Enter Twins — a movie where Arnold and Danny DeVito are... well, twins, because that’s Hollywood logic. Directed by Ivan Reitman, Twins broke the bank for Arnold. Audiences loved seeing their musclebound idol act goofy, and suddenly the guy was even bigger (literally and metaphorically).

And when Arnold went back to blowing stuff up in movies like Total Recall and Terminator 2, he was an even bigger deal. The 'action star does comedy' playbook had worked gold.

The Stallone Rivalry, and a Nightmare Timing for a Comedy

Everyone remembers the little in-joke in Twins — Arnold walks past a poster for Rambo III and cracks up at Stallone’s muscles. Their not-so-secret rivalry was a thing, and Stallone obviously noticed that Arnold was getting rave reviews for branching out.

The problem? Stallone tried his hand at comedy just as his movie luck ran out. Rambo III disappointed at the box office, Lock Up vanished without a trace, Tango & Cash only did okay, and Rocky V flopped hard. Now, in the middle of a losing streak, Sly decided it was time for some laughs. Maybe not the best sense of dramatic timing there.

John Landis and an Unlikely Comeback Story

If Stallone was taking a risk, so was John Landis. In the 1980s, Landis was untouchable — The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Coming to America — hit after hit. But after the infamous Twilight Zone: The Movie accident, where actor Vic Morrow and two children were killed on set, Landis basically got shut out of Hollywood. He was acquitted in court, but the industry wasn’t feeling forgiving.

Looking for a fresh start (or any start, really), Landis pitched Disney’s Touchstone Pictures on a remake of a 1967 French comedy called Oscar. The original star, Louis de Funès, was basically France’s answer to Jerry Lewis. Landis’s tweak: make the character into a 1930s gangster and amp up the slapstick vibe, all very Runyonesque.

How (and Why) Stallone Actually Nails It in Oscar

Originally, the part of “Snaps” Provolone wasn’t meant for Stallone at all — John Belushi and even Al Pacino were considered. But Sly stepped in, and, honestly? He’s way better at this than people think.

He’s not hamming it up or going macho here. Instead, Stallone leans all the way into the classic, frazzled, slightly bewildered 1930s style — think Edward G. Robinson if he spent the whole movie putting out fires and negotiating with chaos instead of shooting people. There’s a real charm to how Sly plays Snaps as the only reasonable guy in a sea of idiocy.

The Cast: Pretty Much Everyone Crushes It

• Peter Riegert: Aldo, the perpetually lost right-hand man — gets the best deadpan lines.
• Marisa Tomei: This was before My Cousin Vinny, and she’s basically the whole engine that keeps the plot whirring, playing Snaps’s not-actually-pregnant daughter.
• Ornella Muti: Snaps’s high-strung wife — funny, neurotic, great timing.
• Chazz Palminteri, Kurtwood Smith, Tim Curry, Martin Ferrero, Harry Shearer, Don Ameche: All show up and all do what they do best.
• Kirk Douglas: Drops in for a cameo where he slaps Stallone repeatedly. Trivia: This was a fun meta joke, since Douglas was supposed to play Col. Trautman in First Blood, but quit over script changes.

Why Everyone Hated It Back Then (And Why That Was Dumb)

Critics dogpiled Oscar when it came out, except for Siskel and Ebert — they were the rare voices actually recommending it. It was a perfect storm of people not wanting to like Stallone in this role, lingering bitterness around Landis, audience expectations for a gunfight in every scene, and the stink left by Sly’s last two comedies. The movie barely scraped past $20 million at the US box office. Yikes.

But as time’s gone by (and probably because nobody asks for shirtless violence anymore), people have started giving it a fairer shake. Reviews now sometimes argue it’s actually one of Stallone’s sharpest, most self-aware performances, and Landis nails the retro-farcical mood. Which is what they were going for in the first place.

Aftermath and Legacy: Not the End of the Joke

Stallone, to his credit, didn’t let the cold water phase him. He’d already filmed the infamous Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot before Oscar tanked, but within a couple years, he roared back with Cliffhanger and Demolition Man. (Let’s just not talk about Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.) Arnold, for his part, finally hit his own flop wall with Last Action Hero.

Fast-forward to today, and action-comedy is everywhere, from The Pacifier to The Game Plan and even Marvel movies. Everybody does it. But if you want a sleeper pick for 'Best Comedy Starring An Action Icon,' Oscar deserves another shot. When you judge it on what it actually is — a nutty, well-made farce, not a machine-gun vehicle — it’s a way better movie than folks remember.

Key Quote: When reviewing Oscar, Siskel and Ebert summed up the movie like this:
'For once, Stallone is willing to play the patsy who’s always one step behind, and it works.'