HOT SHOTS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Jim Abrahams, without the assistance of the Zucker brothers, manages to recapture the spirit of the classic Z.A.Z. comedies with about a gross of bad jokes, a gross of good jokes, a half dozen *very funny* gags, and maybe two or three dozen in-joke film allusions. What NAKED GUN 2-1/2 should have done to police action films, HOT SHOTS does to military flying films. Not one cliche remains intact when Abrahams is done. Rating: law +2 (-4 to +4).
Earlier this summer, and with much fanfare, we saw NAKED GUN 2-1/2 directed by Jerry Zucker of the famous team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, who made KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, AIRPLANE!, TOP SECRET!, television's POLICE SQUAD!, and NAKED GUN. And at that point I said that a film was just not as funny if it did not have all three funny men doing the writing. As far as I am concerned, NAKED GUN 2-1/2 just did not click. Now Jim Abrahams has his own attempt at an Airplane! style film with HOT SHOTS. And guess what? Abrahams operating without the other two really can capture the manic style of AIRPLANE!. HOT SHOTS must average at least three jokes a minute and probably more. Maybe one in six is genuinely funny and at least half are enjoyably witty. The movie is 85 minutes long. You can do the math yourself and figure that HOT SHOTS is a *very funny* movie.
This time around Abrahams is trashing another breed of flying film, the military flying film. TOP GUN, FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, MEMPHIS BELLE, and probably many others provide a mother lode of cliches for HOT SHOTS to mine. But those are just the beginning. There must be thirty film references for films outside the military flight genre. Charlie Sheen plays Topper Harley, a second generation hot-shot pilot who wants to recover the name his father soiled. Carey Elwes (formerly of THE PRINCESS BRIDE) plays Kent Gregory, who has a vendetta to settle against Harley. Valeria Golino (formerly of PEE-WEE'S BIG-TOP) plays Ramada Thompson, Navy psychiatrist and occasional night club singer, who provides the love interest, and who in a remarkable scene with Sheen really sizzles. Even telling the names of most of the other characters would be giving away some of the gags of the film, not that HOT SHOTS could not spare them.
The film culminates in an air attack on a certain unnamed Middle East country. Considering that the flight sequences are basically a throwaway, they are surprisingly convincing. While occasional model work is obvious, at least some of the scenes really seem to show some impressive flying. Even where model work is used it is surprisingly good, no doubt by reaping effects technology as well as cliches from supposedly more serious flying films. If you like Z.A.Z. films but were disappointed by NAKED GUN 2-1/2, this may be the film you were looking for. I rate HOT SHOTS a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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