Saturday, February 10, 2018

STAKEOUT



(August 1987, U.S.)

I honestly don't know whatever became of director John Badham, but back in his day, the man was certainly one of the most versatile filmmakers around, from the musical sensation of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, to the terror of DRACULA (1979), to the high speed thrills of BLUE THUNDER, to the wise-cracking comedy and crime of STAKEOUT. If nothing else, his films often possessed a smooth style of dialogue and character chemistry. At first thought, one would think the pairing of Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez would be too much like father and son to have them play a believable pair of detective partners. But surprise, surprise - the two do work well together and manage to feed off of each other very well. This is what makes the buddy comedy, whether on the road together or fighting crime, highly effective.

As detectives Chris Lecce (Dreyfuss) and Bill Reimers (Estevez), they are assigned to a night shift stakeout of Latina Maria McGuire (played by Medeleine Stowe) because her former dangerous boyfriend Richard (played by Aidan Quinn) has just broken out of prison and is very likely coming straight for her because there is a large sum of money that he hid in her house before he went away, though she has no idea. While they watch her through binoculars and camera lenses to wait and see what happens and with who, the pair are like a couple of frat house boys having fun, while playing pranks on their relief detectives, and enjoying every minute of invading Maria's privacy, unbeknownst to her. They even find reason for Chris to enter her home when she's away, only to have her return while he's still there, hiding under her bed watching her get undressed. This is actually one of the most pleasurable moments of the film because we not only get to enjoy a quick shot of Madeleine Stowe's gorgeous ass just out of the shower...


(Sorry. Again, couldn't resist!)

...but there's also a quick moment when Chris, while trying to decide whether to escape her home unnoticed or indulge in his insatiable curiosities, takes a moment to shake and move his own ass along with Miami Sound Machine's "Conga" playing on her stereo. It's one of those times when you remember that Richard Dreyfuss is funny, as well as dramatic. Of course, movie cliché dictates that not only will Chris and Bill be found out, but that Chris will inevitably fall in love with Maria and have to give her the old bullshit explanation that even though it started out as just another police assignment, it eventually turned into something personal as soon as he got to know her. Yeah, from the comedy to the action, we've likely seen it all before, but like I said, dialogue and chemistry, when done right, go a long way to offer us something new and original each time. Mel Gibson and Danny Glover had it in LETHAL WEAPON, Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines hand it in RUNNING SCARED, and now Dreyfuss and Estevez manage to continue the good streak of the 1980s, despite the big age difference between them (though their 1993 sequel with Rosie O'Donnell was easily forgettable). Hell, anything with Rosie O'Donnell is easily forgettable!

Favorite line or dialogue:

Bill Reimers: "Okay, okay, what movie? "Well, this was not a boating accident!"
Chris Lecce "I don't know."
Bill: "Oh, you're hopeless!"

(Did you catch the JAWS/Dreyfuss reference there??)









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