WHO SAYS A LITTLE DANGER CAN’T BE A LOT OF FUN?
Police detectives Chris Lecce and Bill Reimers (Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez) are working the night shift on a stakeout of a waitress (Madeleine Stowe) who might be contacted by a former boyfriend (Aidan Quinn), a violent criminal on the run. 1987 didn’t just have a terrific action-comedy in the shape of Lethal Weapon, there was also this silly but irresistible movie. Dreyfuss and Estevez are fun as a duo who are not known as Seattle’s most effective cops; on this particular case, they also get inappropriately close to the woman they’re supposed to keep under surveillance. Predictable, but the filmmakers maintain a nice balance between humor and tension, its childish tendencies softened by pure charm.
1987-U.S. 115 min. Color. Produced by Jim Kouf, Cathleen Summers. Directed by John Badham. Screenplay: Jim Kouf. Cast: Richard Dreyfuss (Chris Lecce), Emilio Estevez (Bill Reimers), Aidan Quinn (Richard ”Stick” Montgomery), Madeleine Stowe, Forest Whitaker, Dan Lauria.
Trivia: Val Kilmer was reportedly first cast in Quinn’s role; Leonard Nimoy was considered for directing duties. Remade in India in 1989. Followed by Another Stakeout (1993).
Last word: “I gave [Dreyfuss and Estevez] so much room and so much freedom. And they were able to take it and we would stage a scene one way and they’d come back in half an hour when it was lit and they would’ve re-done the scene so it was the same dialogue, but it was all different. And it was suddenly like, twice as good as it was before. And this was just a whole trust thing between us. ‘Sure, okay, we’ll try it, let’s do this. Let’s try it, invent that, make that up.’ And so, so much of the movie was created as we went along on top of what we already thought was a damn good script.” (Badham, Moviehole)
