What a waste of my time!!!

A Brilliant Conflict

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

MacArthur Stern (Gene Hackman) is a grizzled veteran Washington D.C. police detective. His new partner Ellis Fielding (Dan Aykroyd) is brilliant and has multiple personalities. The duo investigates a West German politician, a series of murders, and yes... Nazis.With Bob Clark, Dan Aykroyd, Gene Hackman and Dom DeLuise, I had some hope for this lesser known comedy to be good. The basic structure is a standard buddy cop comedy. Gene Hackman does a good job, but Dan Aykroyd can't do crazy here. Certainly he can't do it to get a laugh. Mostly he is ridiculous, doing a bad interpretation of the Road Runner. Both men are professional, and there is some chemistry. It's just not enough to give this a recommendation.

How could Gene Hackman be part of this project and still remain dignified throughout the entire movie? Dan Aykroyd has at least done much worse (remember Doctor Detroit) but we kind of expect Hackman to be above this kind of sleazy action/comedy. I guess he thought that he could do Eddie Murphy one better who was at that time the king of action comedy.(Warning: Spoilers) The plot involving the Germans trying to make a Fourth Reich is very tired indeed and they are such an easy target. Check out what happens when Robert Prosky does his "best" Hitler imitation at the end of the movie and look at the screen behind him. Then remember his first scene he's in and it's exactly like you predicted but hoped it wouldn't turn out. I can remember seeing Prosky on Hill Street Blues where he was absolutely great and then seeing him here and saying: "What a tool!"And let's not forget the human blimp Dom DeLuise. Maybe he was funny in the early part of his career but to see him wheeze his way through a part that is miscasting to the max makes you feel nauseous. Ronny Cox of Beverly Hills Cop fame tries a southern accent which makes him sound like a very bad imitation of Billy Bob Thornton.The thing that is funny about this below average film is how many famous people who make perfect fools of themselves and Dan Aykroyd should feel kind of embarrassed to make schizophrenia look annoying instead of a disease. Like Roger Ebert has mentioned: "Any material can be funny if executed the right way." but this is definitely wrong.

I consider this film a guilty pleasure. Yes, it's terrible, and my inner film critic tells me I should absolutely hate it, but hey, it's like one of those comedians such as George Carlin whose sole purposes are to offend and make you laugh. This movie did both for me. I absolutely hate stupid comedies without a brain, but actually, there seem to have been some brains behind this film. The prolific science fiction screenwriter and short story author Richard Matheson - one of my favorites - worked on the script with his author son, so there was obviously more behind this than all the other absolutely awful mainstream "comedies" of the '80s. I think I know what they were getting at - they had a bunch of really wild, unrelated ideas, and decided to put them all into one movie. What other movie can you think of with Neo-Nazis, a cop-buddy formula, Colombian drug dealer torture, Isreali agents, a long-lost porno film starring Adolf Hitler, S&M, and multiple-personality disorder all in one movie, and a comedy at that?! I give them credit for the balls they had in putting all that stuff together. Heck, they were probably making things up as they went along. A lot of it is actually quite funny. Also, believe it or not, director Bob Clark has a very good eye for detail. This is a movie all the critics were destined to love to hate, considering the pedigree of the cast, producer Aaron Spelling (The Love Boat, Charlie's Angels) and director Bob Clark ("A Christmas Story", "Porkies", and "Turk 182"). But if you approach this in the right mindset - as a trashy drive-in-type movie with a bigger budget that's both intentionally and unintentionally funny - you may enjoy it.

I usually find Dan Aykroyd to be good in comedies, and I'm rarely disappointed by Gene Hackman, whatever the movie. So, when I hear about them in a movie together, I naturally want to check it out. Even if it's rated low here on IMDb. Well, this is one of the times where I wish I hadn't been so curious... or at least that I took the advice of one of the many reviewers on this site, and didn't watch it. Fortunately, I had been prepared that it wasn't going to be particularly good, so I didn't pay that much attention to it. Whenever I did look at the screen or even listen to the audio, I felt sorry. Sorry for Aykroyd, sorry for Hackman, sorry for anyone else who has even a tiny bit of talent and yet worked on this movie(one person I'm not feeling sorry for is director Bob Clark, who doesn't seem to have crapped out one single half-decent semi-quality film in his entire career, despite how lengthy it is). The plot is ridiculous. The pacing is poor. The acting isn't even slightly impressive. The characters are clichés and stereotypes. The humor is all crude innuendos and people swearing. How is that funny? Oh, and of course there's Aykroyd's characters multiple personality disorder. Ah yes. Lets laugh at a terrible mental disorder. And what's with how serious the film tries to be, at times? It might have been slightly entertaining, if it didn't take itself so seriously. All in all, just a terrible failure on every conceivable level. I recommend this only to hardcore fans of Hackman and Aykroyd. Everyone else should do themselves a huge favor and skip this. There are plenty of other films with the two actors, and most of them are far better. 1/10