Police Academy 4 – Citizens on Patrol
Like, the actual plot of this is the same old Police Academy crew are tasked with Commandant Lassard’s latest brain fart, a neighborhood patrol campaign that’ll train ordinary people into becoming police. It’s called “Citizens on Patrol” – get it? C.O.P.? – and soon enough Mahoney and Co. (including favorites Tackleberry, Zed, Sweetchuck, Hightower, Callahan and the motor-mouthed Jones) are up to their usual shenanigans while introducing new cadets David Spade – in his film debut, Brian Backer – Marc Ratner from Fast Times at Richmont High and Billie Bird – the venerable TV and movie veteran who to me was the Golden Girl that never was (she was best known to me as Miss Cassidy on the mid-80’s sitcom “Benson” starring Robert Guillaume.) Tagging along as an intrepid news reporter and Mahoney love-interest – who it’s later revealed is also a vintage bi-plane pilot – is none other than a pre-Basic Instinct Sharon Stone. Together, the cops and C.O.P.S. endure the hazing of old nemesis Capt. Harris and his idiot henchman, Procter who desperately want the Citizens on Patrol program to fail and reveal Lassard and crew as frauds, or something. Though Harris is always the bad guy, he seems to have little motivation beyond hating the core cast of characters since movie one and wanting to see them as embarrassed as he always ends up. And when the C.O.P.S. blow an undercover sting operation that was months in the making by storming a warehouse filled with stolen goods, Harris gets his chance to bury his enemies. Alas, all of this is undone by the wackiest third act I’ve ever seen – a jail-break started by Randall “Tex” Cobb playing a game of Simon Says with Procter that ends up freeing a ninja clan and other assorted bad guys that need to be rounded up by our heroes. These nefarious types end up in a bank robbery thwarted by Tackleberry and Mrs. Feldman, on a tall ship where Jones and Callahan use the slowest kung-fu moves in history to stop the ninjas and then, incredibly, in a hot-air balloon race where they’re chased by the cops in bi-planes. It’s “only-in-the-80’s” style madness that has to be seen to be believed, but shouldn’t ever be.
“Take it Brother” Is the first line, as uttered by Steve Gutenberg
The song is everything that is both wrong and right with 80’s music and Michael Winslow, who as Jones, the cop with the gift of mimicking sounds and voices, is one of the best aspects of the series. Here, though, the mileage is showing on Winslow’s shtick and by the end when he breaks out his kung fu dubbing work, it feels like a tired act we’ve seen too much.
Gutenberg is four movies in an thoroughly still committed as Mahoney, who has been elevated from lieutenant to sergeant. Here you have to wonder what it was that was charming about this smarmy wise-ass of a character that made the writers bring him back so many times. Mahoney has little to do here. He shows up about once every ten minutes, smiles wryly while razzing G.W. Bailey as Capt. Harris or standing too close to Sharon Stone, then disappears so we can watch more dumbfuckery unfold from the rest of the cast who are a bunch of complete cartoon characters. Are you even fucking kidding me?
Notes
- Very Saturday Night Skit-ish.
- The cop family that beats the hell Out of each other is funny, but completely ridiculous. Colleen Camp’s cameo as Tackleberry’s love interest from the other movies is a reminder that there were better jokes in the other installments.
- Ha! David Spade!! Super young and a boarder dude. And his stunts were performed by THE Tony Hawk!
- Random skateboarding video break! I vividly recall this skating down the parking garage ramp scene. Like, a couple years ago I was on one driving and wished I had a board, randomly. Now I know why.
- Spade running through a crowd scene was amazing because there were people who totally appeared as if they had zero clue what was happening.
- Spade could board! Surprising AF! Brian Backer too! Wow. What happened to Backer… he was all over the place in the 80s and one a freaking Tony acting in a Woody Allen play in 1981.
- “Get your hands off my ass, Procter.” Good lord. Is Procter the worst? Yes, yes he is actually the very worst in this entire series.
- Billie Bird as Mrs. Feldman. “You wanna hang around here and listening to arteries hardening?” She is the new Tackleberry. Not sure we needed another one…
- Sharon Fucking Stone shows up as a reporter. What?!?
- A pidgeon shitting on Tim Kuzerenski has got to be the nadir of humor.
- Capt. Harris is the fucking Dolores Umbridge of the Police Academy movies!
- Sharon Stone taking Bubba Smith’s dog out of nowhere? This must be the Police Academy Extended Universe.
- How is Captain Harris more the villain in these movies than the actual villains?! move it move it move it!
- The kid riding the bike into the pool is a prime example of how little regard for logic or humor the filmmakers had at this point.
- Leslie Easterbrook in a wet t-shirt gag was pretty fantastic – shades of Caddyshack.
- I loved Bobcat Gothwait’s Zed as a kid and I have to say, I still do. But giving him a romantic subplot may be a bridge too far even for a movie as thoroughly fucking absurd as this one. Although his first embrace, a spin resulting in his falling down dizzy and exclaiming “I think I’m gonna puke” was on brand.
- The worldview and perspective of this thing is impossibly juvenile and perhaps best summed up by the complete foolishness of Lassard’s meeting with other police chiefs from around the world. Scooby Doo had a more realistic world view.
- Ugh. Donut jokes. Blech.
- They’re still doing the leather gay club joke – with the same music cue that I quoted all through high school.
- The movie has almost no story. Sharon Stone has absolutely no character. It’s all just a series of randomly assembled skits.
- Randall Tex Cobb from Raising Arizona is the third-act bad guy. And he breaks out of prison by playing Simon says with Procter.
- This has to be the most inane third act in the history of cinema. How could anyone have thought this was a good idea? The C.O.Ps saving Harris from whitewater rapids after Procter shoots a hole in their hot-air balloon has to be the clearest evidence that cocaine was all-too-available in the writers room.
- Nostalgia is a big takeaway here. It plays such a huge part in our memories of movies. I recalled quite a bit of Police Academy 4, but it was bathed in positive memories – the silliness really appealed to me as a young teenager. But now, nope! Pretty intolerable, honestly. This got me thinking about how movies change in perspective over time. I used to think Bachelor Party was a classic comedy, but a few years ago I tried to watch it and couldn’t make it all the way through. Puerile and idiotic, I ended up turning it off and then realized I didn’t want my copy of the movie anymore. Interestingly, the opposite can happen with movies. I recently rewatched the second in John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy,” the often-maligned “Prince of Darkness.” As a child, it didn’t really click for me until about midway through when everyone started dying. But seeing it as an adult was a totally different experience. I was now more intrigued by the ideas presented, the rather heady concepts blending spirituality and science.
Bottom Five Cops
My approach here was not to simply discuss bad cops in movies – that seems too challenging for a ranking as there are JUST. SO. MANY. And in this climate of “blue lives matter” vs. the mass-reported abuse of power and cowardice of some police, I didn’t want to go in-depth of my personal feelings about the badge. Instead, I went the way of embarrassingly stupid police; the kinds of cops that are just so incredibly inept that they seem like they might exist alongside the idiots from the Police Academy movies. Essentially, my list of Bottom Five Cops mostly doesn’t deal with evil people – it counts off the most inept, petty and stupid police this side of Commandant Lassard’s Academy.
Deputy Henry ‘Hank’ Halik – Moving Violations (1985)
While the cop in this somewhat obscure mid-80’s comedy is crooked as dog’s hind leg, it’s not Deputy Henry ‘Hank’ Halik’s plan to impound and sell the cars of some of the worst drivers ever that has me popping him onto my list at number five. Nope, it’s that this silly, petty and weird deputy has one of the most punchable faces in all of cinema. Played by James Keach, brother of the similarly punchably-faced Stacy Keach – who himself was best known as detective Mike Hammer – the main bad guy in Moving Violations is even more irritating than Dan Murray, brother of Bill Murray, who inexplicably is the lead in this Police Academy-style comedy about a group of driving school students who have to pass a class in order to get their licenses and vehicles back. To be perfectly hones, Dan Murray isn’t all that terrible in this flick, he’s just startlingly unremarkable. But James Keach is memorably assholish in this flick as he inflicts Driver’s Education torment on the colorful group of flunkees (including an early career turn by Jennifer Tilly) all while canoodling with the vivacious judge (played by Sally Kellerman with her usual va-va-va-voom) AND getting it on with his tough as nails partner played by Lisa Hart Carrol. This is a dumb movie that tries to make hay out of Bill Murray’s popularity by getting his younger brother to play a variation of him, but I still love both it and it’s painfully, wonderfully 80’s title theme song.
Buford T. Justice – Smokey and the Bandit. Jackie Gleason. (1977)
As soon as this list was brought-up, I immediately heard the long Louisiana drawl of Jackie Gleason in the role that would define him for a generation of kids who wound up with a deep mistrust of police. While my dad thinks of Gleason as Ralph Kramden, the cantankerous husband from the much-loved TV sitcom, The Honeymooners, I always think back to him as the overbearing, frustrated and wise-cracking Buford T Justice who chases Burt Reynolds’s “Bandit” and his pal “Snowman” as they cart 400 cases of then-partially-illegal Coors across 20 states. Things like jurisdiction don’t mean a damn thing to Buford, his kind of policework is obsessive and personal as he attempts to avenge his family’s good name after Bandit accidentally makes off with Buford’s son’s fiancee, Carrie in his legendary black Pontiac Trans Am. Everyone is terrific in this rollicking and foolishly slapstick road trip adventure, but man, is Burford ever inept, a point most clearly illustrated by the never-ending damage his beleaguered squad car endures. By the end of the movie, he’s pretty much riding a convertible frame with wheels, but as ever, he’s in hot pursuit, disregarding all logic and reason in the process and exclaiming the whole time “You som’ bitch!”
Lt. Lois Einhorn / Ray Finkle – Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)
What’s it say about the police profession when the writers of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective thought the best/most plausible destination for disgraced ex-Miami Dolphins kicker Ray Finkle was to change genders and, surprise surprise, become a lieutenant in the Miami police force? I always enjoyed this comedy, as it largely deals in absurdity that’s winningly wrangled by human cartoon Jim Carrey in the title role. But one thing that always struck me as too wild was the twist that Einhorn is Finkle (a line that is forever burned into my brain by Carrey’s unhinged revelation – a scene that’s wrongly accused of homophobia when it’s very, very clearly sending up the reaction scene in The Crying Game, even going as far as to use the song in the background.) Anyhow, how the Hell does a washed-up NFL kicker become a high-ranking police officer? And of a different gender to boot? Her ability to rise to the ranks despite clearly being next-level deranged, I mean, she kidnaps a dolphin and Dan Marino as revenge for not having a career due to Marino’s not holding the laces-out. Did she somehow hold it together for a decade-plus years while climbing the ranks in department? I mean, Lieutenants are in charge of Sergeants and Officers and sit just under chiefs in power! How in the Gods’ name did Lois stay sane long enough to reach that level only to then come thoroughly unglued? And then she tries to blame Ace for all of her misconduct? Not only crazy, Lois Einhorn is a crooked police officer, perhaps even more crooked than that kick she missed as Ray Finkle in Super Bowl 17!
The Keystone Cops – (1912-1917)
The name itself is synonymous with police ineptitude, so Mac Sennett’s Keystone Cops pictures, produced between 1912 and 1917 are the, pardon the pun, KEY element in the Police Academy movies’ DNA. Bumbling through slapstick scenario after scenario, the Keystone Cops were usually featured as background characters in showcases for silent-film era stars like Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle. But in 1914, Chaplin starred as a Keystone Cop himself in a one-reel, ten-minute comedy caper called “A Thief Catcher,” which is my Keystone pick for this Bottom Five. Appearing at the 6-minute mark, Chaplin bosses everyone around before getting smacked in the face with a shovel in a gag typical of the cops’s schtick. The usual M.O. for these silent comedies was that the cops would show up as a gaggle in a skidding patrol car, typically losing a few members of the squad during along the way via some hair-pin turns. They’d be outsmarted by dim-wit crooks, usually falling down like bowling pins when one of them is hit or perhaps blowing themselves up while still in the police station. Clumsy, buffoonish and cartoony, these cops to this day still define sloppy police work.
Freebie and Bean – Freebie and the Bean (1974)
Even mentioning this flick makes the “Un-PC” crowd get their collective woody going. Crass, ugly, stupid and, to our eyes, grossly racist and misogynistic, not to mention homo- and trans-phobic, this noisy, angry and fucking asinine buddy-cop movie is the inverse of the Blues Brothers where we follow two anti-heroes that are cops instead of musicians who rain little more than destruction in their wake while on a mission (not from God, but from one very, very apoplectic police chief.) It’s plot, if you can even suggest there is one, involves a mis-matched pair of idiot cops – one named Freebie, a risk-taking moron who uses his badge for lightweight extortion and the other nicknamed Bean, a Mexican American (yeah, uh-huh, that’s why the name) who punch and crash their way through 1970’s San Francisco while trying to protect a racketeer targeted for assassination. With two A-listers in James Caan (as Freebie) and Alan Arkin (as Bean), this should have been more character-centric, but Adam Arkin said it all in his summation of the movie when asked about it in a 1974 interview with People Magazine: “it’s garbage.” The two leads try as they might in their scenes together, but they’re playing horrendously unlikable and dumb cops, and regardless of whatever chemistry they muster, the obnoxiousness of their characters overwhelms.
The movie is the template for dozens of buddy-cop comedies that followed, including “48 Hours,” “Lethal Weapon,” “Bad Boys” and on and on. But these two characters are the worst: brain-dead, punch-first-and-ask-questions later who have zero interest in actually protecting and serving and instead fret about them getting theirs – whether it’s pensions, sex, new coats, or whatever else. These dudes are the nasty version of the “Police Academy” dolts – just as mindless and sophomoric, but instead of living in a cartoon world of slapstick and pranks, they exist in a gritty crime drama where people are berated for their ethnicity or sexual persuasion, suspects are murdered violently, stray bullets hit nurses and leads are chased down, beaten or shot. In between insane car chases, the pair bicker and argue about nonsense in sloppily improvised sequences that show neither actor working anywhere near their baseline.
As far as movie cops go, these “good guys” are among the worst I’ve ever been asked to tolerate or root for, more cousins to Denzel Washington’s crooked “Training Day” character than Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley who, while a rule-breaker, at least represented some level of moral compass throughout. Everything here is a joke or something to be taken lightly, including crashing a car into a third-floor apartment building.
Staff Pick: Contact (1997)
25th anniversary of the movie’s release. Recent Vulture article detailing the long production history of the movie, which essentially took about 20 years to bring to the screen.
The film stands up today as something of a precursor to “Don’t Look Up,” in that it’s a smart and star-studded take on its subject matter. Starring Jodie Foster as Ellie Arroway, the movie traces her journey as an outsider astronomer working with SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) who picks up a signal from a star some 26 light years away that has engineering instructions hidden within it to build an interstellar device. Along for the ride is a fantastic cast of A-listers including Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerrit, David Morse, Angela Basset, John Hurt and, even though I’m not a big fan now, a pitch-perfect James Woods as a sleazy senator. Also worth noting are Jena Malone as young Ellie – a very early career turn that earned her a Saturn Award for best young actress – and a positively stellar William Fichtner who brings a completely different side of his screen versatility as a gentle, blind colleague of Ellie’s with a sharp sense of hearing (and a sharp sense of humor to match – the takedown of Wood’s senator character late in the movie had me rolling. “Nice to smell you again, Mr. Kitz.” It felt like an improv that caught Woods off-guard.
The story, by Carl Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan goes heavy on the science, but heavier on character, building out a compelling and – for this guy – satisfying narrative that feels like a more logical way “first contact” might happen. It also balances issues of faith with the empiricism of science, and the weird intersection between the two where the answers to questions are not always clear or rational. The ending, a much debated and maligned finish that finds Ellie conversing with her father on a galactic beach, is brainy and bold, but if you’re looking for simple answers, maybe continue to sit this one out.
I love Contact – I find it an exciting story with several unexpected twists and it has a ton to say about women’s roles in science and in politics. While some of the visual effects – specifically those employed to bring Bill Clinton into a background role as the president – date the film, the ideas still feel new, hopeful and smart. And that “For Carl” before the end credits? It breaks me up every time.
Explain watching it with Justin – how it resonated with an 11 year-old and how when the machine blows up he audibly gasped.
Mike’s Pick: Home Team (2022)
Mike, about a year ago now, you made a little bit of bad cinema history yourself by earning last place in an annual tournament you helped create for another podcast. That tournament, which is firing up once again over at the Filmspotting podcast, is called “Filmspotting Madness,” and it’s a March Madness-style prediction bracket that pits movies and movie-makers against each other based on some decided criteria, like “Best of the decade” or whatever.
Each year, you, Filmspotting hosts Josh Larson and Adam Kempenaar, and their producer Sam Van Hallgren, have a private competition going where the person with the winning bracket doesn’t earn anything but bragging rights, but the loser… well, the loser has to watch the latest Adam Sandler movie. Alas, in recent years Sandler has been upping his game in fare like “Uncut Gems” and 2022’s “Hustle,” so the decision was the loser in 2022 had to watch the latest Happy Madison production, and oh boy does that sound terrible. Well, Mike, you lost big during the last Filmspotting Madness, so you’re the one who got assigned “Home Team” a cinematic debacle by definition if ever there was one.