Weekend at Bernie's is a 1989 black comedy film directed by Ted Kotcheff. It is a comedy starring Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman as a couple of young insurance executives who discover their boss is deceased. Believing that they are responsible for his death and that a hitman won't kill them if Bernie is around, they attempt to convince people that he is still alive.
The film was quite profitable on home video and rental[1] and spawned a sequel in 1993, Weekend at Bernie's II. Though the movie was not a box office hit, it "became a surprise hit ... made $70 million worldwide before tearing up the American home-video market."[2]
Plot Summary
Larry (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard (Jonathan Silverman) are two low-level employees at an insurance agency who uncover a $2 million fraud involving multiple life insurance payments that got paid before the supposed death of the insured. Taking their findings to their boss Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), Bernie commends them for discovering insurance fraud and invites them to his Block Island beach house, in Rhode Island, for the following long weekend.
Unbeknownst to Larry & Richard, Bernie is behind the fraud and nervously arranges with his mob partners to have them both killed that weekend and arrange it as a murder-suicide. The gangsters, however, double cross Bernie and change the plan to have Paulie (Don Calfa) murder Bernie at his beach house instead, as Bernie's reckless greed has made him a liability, in addition to the fact he is having an affair with the wife (girlfriend) of Vito, the gang leader.
Bernie arrives at the island early, before Larry and Richard, and speaks to Paulie on the phone. The conversation was accidentally recorded on Bernie's answering machine. Bernie then writes a confession and plants cash implicating Larry and Richard in what Bernie thinks will be their later deaths. Paulie arrives, kills Bernie by injection and leaves heroin to appear as an apparent overdose.
Larry and Richard arrive at the beach house, find their now dead boss and think he is meditating. While trying to liven him up, they find the evidence left by the killer, thinking Bernie overdosed. It is at this point that guests start arriving for a "floating" party at Bernie's, as he is immensely popular on the island. Thinking that they might be blamed for his death, Larry and Richard put off calling the police, and go to great effort to convince party guests that Bernie is alive, or keeping attention away from the body. Richard also tries to court Gwen in a romantic lighthouse, lying on the beach. The boys are able to convince the partiers that their beloved host is not dead, so much that Bernie even "agrees" to sell his Porsche for $50,000 to the resort's tennis instructor after numerous rejections of his reasonable price quotes.
The party continues, with Richard courting fellow insurance worker - a summer intern - Gwen (Catherine Mary Stewart). After the party ends, another of Bernie's gang arrives, thinking Bernie is still alive, he reports this.
The next day starts with Larry playing Monopoly with his dead boss, out on the deck. Richard gets flustered when Gwen arrives to thank Bernie for her summer job at the insurance company. Larry hides Bernie during this, by dropping him of the side of the deck. Larry unknowingly drops Bernie's corpse onto Paulie, who was hiding underneath the patio. Paulie's flails in surprise at seeing Bernie come at him, and it is apprarent to Paulie that Bernie jumped off the patio and is attacking him in anger, causing Paulie to suffocate Bernie. Larry and Richard then attempt to call the police, while using the phone they listen to Bernie's conversation with Paulie on the answering machine. They then discover the cash and note left by Bernie framing them. They initially try to leave the island by ferry, dragging Bernie draped over their shoulders to look like he's walking between them. The ferry leaves as they arrive at the wharf and Paulie - who is on the ferry - becomes agitated at the sight of Bernie running alongside Larry and Richard shouting to stop the boat. Paulie is driven crazy at how two murder attempts on Bernie could have failed.
Next, Larry and Richard attempt to use Bernie's boat to leave the island. Neither really know how to drive a boat, and end up wreaking havoc on a few local boats and fisherman. Once they are in open water, Bernie falls out of the boat, tied up like a water skier, and hits a few buoys before the friends realize Bernie is no longer on the boat. Once they reel him in, and take off, the boat runs out of gas, and the duo is forced to paddle on Bernie back to the beach house.
Back at the house, Gwen arrives and Larry and Richard tell her the truth about Bernie, that he has died. Suddenly Pauli returns, thinking Bernie is still alive, and blatantly fires six gunshots into Bernie in front of Gwen, Larry and Richard. Pauli then turns the gun on the others, but he has emptied the chamber. Pauli grabs another gun and the three friends scatter, to which Pauli misfires. Richard and Gwen head to the bedroom, while Larry tries to draw gunfire. Eventually Larry surprises Pauli, and entangles him in a phone cord, and knocks him out with a single punch. The police eventually arrive, who place Pauli under arrest for first degree murder. As Bernie is being taken away to the coroner, his gurney rolls out of the ambulance and down the boardwalk, dumping Bernie's body off the gurney and onto the beach.
Main cast
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