STAKEOUT
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: John Badham's third or fourth police
film is his best to date. Comedy-drama has a policeman on a
stakeout falling in love with the woman he is supposed to be
watching. There have been a lot of police films out of late;
my guess is that someone who knows police work would think
this one is head and shoulders above the rest.
There are all kinds of police films coming out this year. The more notable among them are THE UNTOUCHABLES, BEVERLY HILLS COPS II, LETHAL WEAPON, and DRAGNET. The newest addition to the list is John Badham's STAKEOUT. STAKEOUT is unlikely to earn at the boxoffice anything like those four films, yet of the four, only THE UNTOUCHABLES may be a better film. To begin with, STAKEOUT is about three-dimensional characters. THE UNTOUCHABLES had at least an interesting character in Elliot Ness. They go downhill from there to DRAGNET, whose main character is not so much a character as a voice impression over a smirk masquerading as a character. Which had believable situations? None of the four really, but STAKEOUT does. There are, perhaps, other virtues that makes THE UNTOUCHABLES a better film in general, but as a police film STAKEOUT is probably the best thing we have seen since some of the better films based on Joseph Wambaugh's novels. And with so many police films coming out, that is saying quite a bit.
Chris Leece (played by Richard Dreyfus) and Bill Reimers (played by Emilio Estevez) are the kind of cops you rarely see a film about. They are neither supercops nor complete screw-ups. They are just average men trying to do a job. They pull an assignment that no cop really wants to get--a dull stakeout spending nights watching the house of the former girlfriend of a sociopath who has recently escaped from prison. It's a dull, stupid job just watching a house, so they keep themselves occupied by joking with each other and fighting a practical joke war with the two cops on the day shift. None of the humor is forced or unrealistic and it comes from the personalities of the characters rather than being forced into the plot. Complications set in as Leece gets closer to the girlfriend than police rules allow and eventually finds himself falling in love with her.
John Badham is an unpredictable director. Some of his films work as well as the clever TV-movie ISN'T IT SHOCKING?, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, and WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY?. He can also turn out tripe like WARGAMES and BLUE THUNDER. The latter is a police film whose weakest points are just where STAKEOUT is strongest--its credibility and its human characters. STAKEOUT throws in a little more action than it needs, but if you like the genre of police films, this is the one to see. Give it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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