See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)

In 1976's Silver Streak, Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder seemed like a fresh idea in comedy pairings: black vs. white, hipster vs. nerd, funky vs. feckless. Yet their two follow-up films proved how something fresh can suddenly seem canned.

Now rereleased at a lower price (together with 1980's Stir Crazy), in the hapless See No Evil, Hear No Evil, age seems to have undermined both comedians' strengths: Pryor now seems absolutely out to lunch, and Wilder's angel-faced innocence is long lost. Pryor is cast as a blind man and Wilder as a deaf man, but both of them must have been senseless to be in this fiasco.

For what it's worth, the two performers are currently making another movie together, their fourth. Perhaps it will break a streak that has been anything but silver. C-