DVD Review | Hot Shots!
Written by: Kage Alan

Film Rating: B
DVD Special Features: B

After the success of the hysterical Leslie Nielson vehicle, "The Naked Gun",
it was only a matter of time before creators Jim Abrahams and Pat Proft took
a shot the "Top Gun" genre.  Few people have ever been able to make a spoof
quite like these guys.  They have a knack for it and many of Hollywood's
comedy directors should take lessons from them.  Sure, not every single joke
hits the mark, but there are so many of them fired at the audience every
minute that at least a couple of them hit and that's what counts.

Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen, "Men At Work") is a top-notch hot shot pilot
with a colored past due large in part to his father's similar reckless
reputation.  Well, the military threw Topper out and he currently resides in
an Indian village ala "Dances With Wolves", which is exactly where they find
him when an important mission called "Sleepy Weasel" is created to take out a
facility under the control of Saddam Hussein.  It just wouldn't be a complete
movie unless we had an additional semi-serious subplot, so there's one about
a military contractor who wants the current model of plane to fail in warfare
so they will spend millions or billions buying his superfighter.

Right, blah blah blah, whatever.  Aside from the areas of plot, we are given
a colorful cast of misfits to help carry the mission off.  First up is the
ultra-sophisticated and sexy psychiatrist named Ramada (Valeria Golino,
"Immortal Beloved") who must either ground Topper for having Paternal
Conflict Syndrome brought on by thinking about his father or allow him to
fly, the wonderfully incompetent Admiral Benson (Lloyd Bridges, "Jane
Austen's Mafia!") who probably doesn't have a single natural organ or body
part left in his body, the suave preppy pretty boy pilot (Cary Elwes, "The
Princess Bride"), another flyboy (Jon Cryer, "Pretty In Pink") with walleye
vision and a female pilot (Kristy Swanson, who coincidentally shared a moment with Jon Cryer at the end of "Pretty In Pink").

All is fair in love and spoofs, so anything and everything along with "Top
Gun" and "Dances With Wolves" is fair game.  The bit where the food/sex scene from "9 ½ Weeks" is expanded on is especially amusing.  While the film is missing the deadpan timing and talent of someone like Leslie Nielsen in the
lead, Lloyd Bridges totally steals the show in every single scene he's in.  I
laughed my ass off in "Hot Shots!", but I especially looked forward to every
time Bridges entered the screen.

Fox has delivered a decent looking Anamorphic Widescreen transfer.  While the colors are sharp, the picture does have a fair share of specs that don't seem
to have been cleaned up.  Fortunately, it doesn't detract too much.  The
English Dolby Surround Sound is quite nice, so some points for that.  As for
extras, there's a theatrical trailer for the film and a number of others as
well as a 25-minute featurette titled "Making of an Important Movie" that
includes interviews with cast and crew as well as plenty of behind-the-scenes
footage and clips.  The only thing this disc is missing is an audio
commentary, something that hasn't been particularly interesting on the "Naked
Gun" discs.  Perhaps they learned from their previous mistakes and just
didn't bother this time.

If goofy humor is your pleasure, "Hot Shots!" won't disappoint you.  The only
thing better than one film is a sequel and there just so happens to be one of
those.  I was sad to hear it when Lloyd Bridges passed away.  He had a real
knack for comedy and it's too bad someone never thought to pair him with
Leslie Nielsen.  Oh, well.  At least we'll have good memories of the man in
these films.  A special thank you to Miss Marianne for the disc.