The story involves a weepy old bearded man named Abe who lives comfortably in a home in the middle of the forest with a gorilla (clearly a guy in a gorilla suit) named Bruno. One day, when Abe suffers a heart attack, Bruno ventures off to find help for him. Not knowing Bruno is a harmless gorilla that lives with Abe, the town begins to freak out as they see him wandering the streets. As luck would have it, Bruno manages to lead the police to Abe so that he can receive medical attention. Unfortunately for Bruno, the local redneck police are out to kill him.

"Abe And Bruno" is quite simply a laughably bad kid flick with weak attempts at humor (Bruno going to the bathroom in a toilet or eating cinnamon rolls), unintentional humor (Abe crying had me in a laughing fit), stilted acting (see Brad J. Sergi as Abe) and even worse directing (people are fleeing and smiling instead of fleeing in terror in one scene). Basically, anything that can go wrong in a film does here.

To top it off, Abe (terribly played by Brad J. Sergi) has to be one of the worst screen characters I have seen in a long while. If you don't believe me, here's proof: In the opening six minutes, a blubbering Abe tells Bruno the gorilla "I can't imagine living the rest of my life without you," while Bruno wipes a tear from his eye. One would think he's talking to his wife, but he's actually talking to his gorilla. What's even scarier is Abe has a girlfriend named Edie and he never shows her the same amount of affection as he does with Bruno. I'm not going to go into depth about the hints of eroticism between the two in this film, but they are as evident as they are disturbing...especially since this is meant to be a children's film. I guess we should be grateful Abe and Bruno didn't sleep in the same bed (they had separate beds).

The DVD

Video:
The 1.78:1 widescreen picture is the only redeeming quality of this entire disk! Aside from some blurry cinematography and grainy night scenes, the video quality is generally clean and clear.

Sound: The Dolby Digital Stereo track can best be described as sounding as if the actors and actresses were speaking through paper cups. This is mostly due to the atrocious voice dubbing that rivals the poorest quality Jackie Chan movie.

Extras: No extras here unless you count scene selections (I don't).

Final Thoughts:
"Abe And Bruno" is a mind numbingly awful children's film that should be avoided at all costs.

Film and television enthusiast Nick Lyons recently had his first book published titled "Attack of the Sci-Fi Trivia." It is available on Amazon.com.