Film Reviews

Posted: Mon., Dec. 31, 1990, 11:00pm PT

Hot Shots!

20th Century Fox/PAP. Dir Jim Abrahams; Producer Bill Badalato; Screenplay Jim Abrahams, Pat Proft; Camera Bill Butler; Editor Jane Kurson, Eric Sears; Music Sylvester LeVay Art Dir William A. Elliot
Charlie Sheen Cary Elwes Valeria Golino Lloyd Bridges Kevin Dunn Kristy Swanson
Jim Abrahams tries to tap the zany Airplane! vein with this Top Gun spoof but bats far too low a percentage with the usual rapid-fire assault of numbingly stupid gags. Pic bogs down in motion picture in-jokes, drawing liberally on Top Gun and An Officer and a Gentleman, while intercutting homages to scenes from The Fabulous Baker Boys, 9 1/2 Weeks and Gone with the Wind.

Charlie Sheen is the maverick pilot competing with self-obsessed Kent (Cary Elwes). One film spoof does provide the biggest belly laugh, quite literally, when Sheen begins erotically feeding Valeria Golino grapes and, in escalating passion, cooks breakfast on her sizzling stomach.

Most characters are gratingly cartoonish, especially Lloyd Bridges' way over-the-top tin-headed admiral.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1991. Running time: 85 MIN.

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