When I first heard of this film sometime around 1986 I was employed as a plumber, so I of course I had to see it. I found it in the public library and ended up watching it with my eleven year old sister in law. Twenty years later I have long since stopped making my living as a plumber and my eleven year old sister in law hasn't been my sister-in-law for a decade. But I have a feeling that she still remembers this film because we both had a great time watching it, and we spoke of it for years afterwards.
The Plumber is not a big movie. It is a character study filmed in a very small setting. Although I usually see it categorized as either a thriller or as a horror movie, it is neither of those. It is a study of an obviously disturbed plumber who is set off for some reason by Jill Cowper, the tenant in the apartment where he is called to look at the plumbing. I say that he was "set off," because if he did in every apartment what he does in Jill's then he would have been locked up a long time ago. He could not have made a habit of behaving in the manner in which he behaves in the film. Although he really did not harm anyone, he made himself threatening and tore the bathroom apart for no reason - neither of which is conducive to being a satisfactory plumber.
I have to say that when I worked as a plumber I was quite competent and I did not wreck people's houses. I did clean work, as much as plumbing can be clean anyway, and I took pride in it. However, I have always had an odd sense of humor, and sometimes I would mess around a bit with the heads of my clients. Nothing mean or scary like our buddy Max in this movie, but funny nonetheless. I can recall one time when I was called out to an apartment that had water dripping into it from the unit above. When I arrived there was a college age girl there, but the water was not presently dripping and the tenants in the apartment above were not home, so I could not go upstairs and investigate. There was not much that I could do about it at the moment. So I started to ask the girl about the problem and she told me that water was sometimes dripping from the light fixture on the ceiling. I looked at her very seriously and asked "was it wet?" She asked me what I meant, and I said "this water - was it wet?" She looked confused and unsure of how to answer. I told her that I needed to know if the water was wet, since I could not go upstairs and see for myself. She continued to look confused and sort of stammered out something like "yeah I guess so" and looked quite baffled, as if she was wondering if there was something more to water than meets the eye that a plumber might need to know about, and what it could be and why she didn't know about it. She had that look about her like she suddenly found herself in an alternate universe, where the simplest things that she took for granted were all of the sudden strange and alien, and nothing made sense. I left soon after and never did tell her that I was messing around - I didn't make any money if I went to a call and couldn't do any work so I suppose that was my payment. I did a lot of things like that, certainly never harming anyone or even being mean but I did leave a lot of confused customers in my wake.
Anyway, as a plumber myself, The Plumber was doubly hilarious. Everything about what he did as a plumber was completely absurd. He was there for a very minor problem, yet soon he was carrying in all sorts of supplies that had nothing at all to do with the problem at hand. Cut to later shots of Max the plumber in the bathroom and we see sinks coming off of walls and, most absurdly of all, a full set of scaffolding covering the entire bathroom! That last one is so completely over the top that any plumber could not help but be struck by the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Then there was Max's piece de resistance. Cut the the bathroom again, and there is Max, sitting on the toilet with a guitar and one of those harmonicas in a brace that fits around the neck ala Bob Dylan, composing a song that must have been titled "I'm Me, Babe" but we don't know for sure. The whole thing just took the cake right over the top and heaved it over the fence. My sister in law and I sang that song for months afterwards. Think about it - not only is he in there with a guitar and singing when he is supposed to be fixing the plumbing, but he has a neck mounted harmonica too! It's a classic moment, and I don't use the word classic very often.
Overall, you don't have to be a plumber to enjoy this movie, but if you are, or even involved in a trade that brings you into people's homes, then the absurdity of the situations in this film will probably hit home a bit harder. And yes, as others have noted, the ending is bit weak; but there are enough "moments" in The Plumber to overcome it. You'll be singing "I'm Me, Baaaaaaabe" long after you've forgotten the ending.
The Plumber is not a big movie. It is a character study filmed in a very small setting. Although I usually see it categorized as either a thriller or as a horror movie, it is neither of those. It is a study of an obviously disturbed plumber who is set off for some reason by Jill Cowper, the tenant in the apartment where he is called to look at the plumbing. I say that he was "set off," because if he did in every apartment what he does in Jill's then he would have been locked up a long time ago. He could not have made a habit of behaving in the manner in which he behaves in the film. Although he really did not harm anyone, he made himself threatening and tore the bathroom apart for no reason - neither of which is conducive to being a satisfactory plumber.
I have to say that when I worked as a plumber I was quite competent and I did not wreck people's houses. I did clean work, as much as plumbing can be clean anyway, and I took pride in it. However, I have always had an odd sense of humor, and sometimes I would mess around a bit with the heads of my clients. Nothing mean or scary like our buddy Max in this movie, but funny nonetheless. I can recall one time when I was called out to an apartment that had water dripping into it from the unit above. When I arrived there was a college age girl there, but the water was not presently dripping and the tenants in the apartment above were not home, so I could not go upstairs and investigate. There was not much that I could do about it at the moment. So I started to ask the girl about the problem and she told me that water was sometimes dripping from the light fixture on the ceiling. I looked at her very seriously and asked "was it wet?" She asked me what I meant, and I said "this water - was it wet?" She looked confused and unsure of how to answer. I told her that I needed to know if the water was wet, since I could not go upstairs and see for myself. She continued to look confused and sort of stammered out something like "yeah I guess so" and looked quite baffled, as if she was wondering if there was something more to water than meets the eye that a plumber might need to know about, and what it could be and why she didn't know about it. She had that look about her like she suddenly found herself in an alternate universe, where the simplest things that she took for granted were all of the sudden strange and alien, and nothing made sense. I left soon after and never did tell her that I was messing around - I didn't make any money if I went to a call and couldn't do any work so I suppose that was my payment. I did a lot of things like that, certainly never harming anyone or even being mean but I did leave a lot of confused customers in my wake.
Anyway, as a plumber myself, The Plumber was doubly hilarious. Everything about what he did as a plumber was completely absurd. He was there for a very minor problem, yet soon he was carrying in all sorts of supplies that had nothing at all to do with the problem at hand. Cut to later shots of Max the plumber in the bathroom and we see sinks coming off of walls and, most absurdly of all, a full set of scaffolding covering the entire bathroom! That last one is so completely over the top that any plumber could not help but be struck by the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Then there was Max's piece de resistance. Cut the the bathroom again, and there is Max, sitting on the toilet with a guitar and one of those harmonicas in a brace that fits around the neck ala Bob Dylan, composing a song that must have been titled "I'm Me, Babe" but we don't know for sure. The whole thing just took the cake right over the top and heaved it over the fence. My sister in law and I sang that song for months afterwards. Think about it - not only is he in there with a guitar and singing when he is supposed to be fixing the plumbing, but he has a neck mounted harmonica too! It's a classic moment, and I don't use the word classic very often.
Overall, you don't have to be a plumber to enjoy this movie, but if you are, or even involved in a trade that brings you into people's homes, then the absurdity of the situations in this film will probably hit home a bit harder. And yes, as others have noted, the ending is bit weak; but there are enough "moments" in The Plumber to overcome it. You'll be singing "I'm Me, Baaaaaaabe" long after you've forgotten the ending.