DVD/Movie Review: Just One of the Guys

 

Just One of the Guys is a 1984 comedy starring Joyce Hyser, Clayton Rohner, William Zabka, Sherilyn Fenn, and Billy Jayne. The movie is partly a cookie-cutter 1980s coming-of-age teen comedy, but it does deviate partly from being completely cookie-cutter. The story does not start as the "typical" teen romantic comedy. It starts with a theme of sexism and misogyny as a journalism student named Terri, played by Joyce Hyser, is not entered into a competition by her teacher that would land her an internship at a newspaper. She decides that it is because she is a girl and decides to enroll at a different school as "Terry" and hopefully get entered into the competition on her journalistic merit. From there, it does get into the cookie-cutter 80s teen comedy with Teri falling for one of her classmates, Rick Morehouse, played by Clayton Rohner, having to fend off a bully, Greg, William Zabka, and being pursued as Terry, by another classmate, Sandy, played by the utterly gorgeous Sherilyn Fenn. Of course, hilarity ensues as she tries to hide being a guy and then, in the end, has to reveal, in spectacular fashion, that she is not a boy.

For those looking to get the movie on disc, there is a Blu-Ray version out there that does have a commentary track with at least some of the cast members included. The DVD version just has the movie itself, no extras. It would be nice if there were a bit of behind-the-scenes material, but given that the movie was not anywhere near as big as some of the other 1980s teen comedies, it is not surprising that the release is pretty bare bones.

Overall, the movie is good. Probably better than it got credit for being at the time. It definitely does require some suspension of disbelief, just like movies like Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead require. The whole scheme is not something that a kid could pull off in real life. But, if you accept it for what it is and do not overanalyze it too much, the movie is enjoyable. The acting is very good, with Billy Jacoby, who plays Terri's little brother, Buddy stealing nearly every scene he is in, and Fenn doing sultry about as well as she did in Twin Peaks. While I would not call it a must-see, if you are into 80s comedies, especially the coming-of-age movies like Fast Times, this is a good one to check out.