12 "Important" Movies That Are Actually Terrible

10. Stir Crazy (1980)

Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are one of the best-loved big screen comedy double acts of all time, and with very good reason. Individually, they were both among the most gifted comedic actors of their time; together, their chemistry was tremendous. And heaven knows they needed it, because as great a team as they were, they made some pretty poor movies together.

Sadly, this is very much the case with 1980's Stir Crazy, which casts them as a pair of failing showbiz wannabes (Wilder a writer, Pryor an actor) who take a job dressing up as woodpeckers advertising a bank on the streets of LA, but get framed for robbery when the bank is hit by a pair of criminals in identical bird suits. They wind up serving life sentences in a maximum security prison, until they hatch an escape plan which hinges on Wilder's unexpected skill as a rodeo rider.

It's a fine set-up for a comedy, and with Wilder and Pryor, it's hard to see where Stir Crazy could go wrong... but it simply isn't funny, and considering the cast, there can be no greater crime than that. One or two scenes aside (notably Wilder and Pryor 'getting bad' when they first enter prison), laughs are painfully thin on the ground, and by the final act it's played largely like a straight prison break thriller; just not a very interesting one.

Still, it's better than See No Evil, Hear No Evil, if that's much of a compliment.