Hot Shots! (1991)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Topper Harley	Charlie Sheen	½
Kent Gregory	Cary Elwes	½
Ramada	Valeria Golino
Admiral "Tug" Benson	Lloyd Bridges	½
Lt. Commander Block	Kevin Dunn
Jim "Washout" Pfaffenbach	Jon Cryer	½
Kowalski	Kristy Swanson

Review

So Jim Abrahams went solo after the wildly successful Airplane! and The Naked Gun series, casting Charlie Sheen in the Leslie Nielsen role and bringing back the hilarious Lloyd Bridges, to make another genre spoof - this time harassing the war mission films in general, and Top Gun in particular. The humour is the same, although in Hot Shots! it is slightly less intellectual than in Airplane! (when it comes to dialogue and puns etc.) and slightly less focused on sex than in The Naked Gun. A lot of the time it works, and Hot Shots! is quite funny throughout, but the script by Abrahams and Pat Proft isn't quite of the same standard as with Zucker/Abrahams earlier outings, and the deadpan comedy and background details don't feel as fresh as they used to. Maybe this has more to do with the fact that the jokes in here sometimes fall short, despite the fact that Sheen is in fine form (much better than in most of his more serious work). The unique Bridges livens it all up, but of course not even he can come close to his own McCroskey (which is arguably the best comedic performance on film before Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura). Hot Shots! might do the trick to the extent that it will make you laugh, but sometimes it's just hard to get out of the shadow of a more successful brother.