Customer Reviews

Hot Shots!

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This kooky movie mainly parodies Tom Cruise's Top Gun, but pokes fun at Dances With Wolves, and many others. This is the story of Lt. Topper Harley (played by Charlie Sheen), who is trying to overcome the ghosts that haunt his life. But, the U.S Government needs Topper to fly in a secret mission to destroy a nuclear plant in Iraq. But, between evil capitalists, an insane admiral (Lloyd Bridges), and a band of strange and incompetent pilots, this is bound to be a far from normal mission! [Color, released in 1991, with a running time of 1:24.]

This is an extremely funny, extremely offbeat movie from that king of funny, offbeat movies - Jim Abrahams. If you are familiar with Mr. Abrahams' other movies, Airplane and The Naked Gun, then you know just what kind of zaniness he is capable of. Well, this movie lives up to the standards set by those other Abrahams hits.

The story is quite funny, with lots of slapstick, sight gags, and all around silliness. My daughter bought this movie with her own money, and enjoyed it immensely. In fact, the whole family did. We highly enjoyed this movie, and highly recommend it!

After setting the police profession back 100 years with the "Naked Gun" movie, director Jim Abrahams decided to set his sights on the military with "Hot Shots." And the military will never be the same again.

What makes this movie so much fun are the sight gags that are in almost every scene. As with all good slapstick comedy movies, there are too many sight gags for you to be able to catch them all the first, and even second, time around. Every time you watch this movie, you will find another sight gag that you hadn't noticed before.

The movie also comes with a great comedic cast. It stars Charlie Sheen who for the first time really gets a chance to show how funny he can be (his previous comedy movies are pretty much forgettable). He is supported by Jon Cryer, Lloyd Bridges, and Cary Elwes. Each of these people have a great track record on their own when it comes to comedy. Together, they make the movie work.

I recall first watching this movie with my ex-friend and I took a trip down the coast. I wasn't really expecting much, pretty much just another slapstick, stupid comedy. But to be totally honest, this movie is really awesome! "Hotshots," ought to have you rolling around the floor in some instances. But first, a look at the "storyline."

Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen) is the son of a famous air ace who died um...tragically in an F-15 crash landing and a terrible mix-up regarding moose hunting season. He decides to follow in his father's footsteps and become a flying wonder. This briefly sums up the main "story," but there are many other smaller stories including that of Pete 'Dead Meat' Thompson (William O'Leary) and Jim 'Wash Out' Pfaffenbach (Jon Cryer) who fights his own personal war against the terrible ailment of Wall Eye Vision. That aside, Topper Harley must find out what really happened to his dad and help both his friends and himself to achieve their dreams, even if it goes to ridiculous proportions.

You may think that this is a movie that merely takes the piss out of movies like "Top Gun," "Full Metal Jacket," and "Kickboxer," but...well, you're right. But the satire is clever (yet decidedly idiotic), and it certainly succeeds in making just about everything totally ridiculous. Don't expect realism, objectivenes and logic in this movie - that's not the point of it. It's there as a satire, and really is a classic satirical film of the 1990's. The appeal of "Hotshots" is the sheer stupidity and absurdity of many of the events that take place in the movie, and of course, if you've watched the movies that are being ripped off, you'll really laugh your head off.

The best character has to be Adm. Thomas 'Tug' Benson (Lloyd Bridges). He performs the role of a supposedly "hardened" war-veteran and a man who has seen much conflict with great gusto. It just goes to show that some vets get more violent, others more angry, some sad - and Benson just gets dumber. He's even better in the sequel, which is surprisingly better than the original (Hence the reason why this only gets 4.5 stars.)

All in all, "Hotshots," is a moronic, silly, yet extremely funny and witty slapstick comedy. If you like Monty Python style humour or just love classic slapstick, this movie is undoubtedly for you. Otherwise, if you like intelligent comedy, stay the hell away from "Hotshots." It's not meant to be intelligent, so remember that. But at the end of it all, it'll always be a classic slapstick, silly comedy! Buy it, rent it, steal it today!

Hot Shots is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Charlie Sheen is okay, but in my opinion, the real comic here is Lloyd Bridges, playing Admiral Benson. Of course there are many other funny characters including the wall-eyed vision Washout. If you like movies with stupid humor, this is a must see.

If your not into those whacky comedy spoofs then you will hate this Parody of Top Gun, amongst other movies! But I love these kind of send up whacky comedys, and this one is high up there with the best of them all!

Charlie Sheen plays Topper Harley and has had a bad past with the US Air Force and has quit the army... but the Army needs him once again and with non stop stupidity and comedy through the movie from door bells on Indian Tee Pees, to Barbequing hot hots with the jets of fighter planes, and a dog that just keeps getting sat on amongst many others, this movie will have you laughing your tushy off!

Its no acadamey award winner, but thats obviously not the idea for this comic life movie! It parodys a lot of movies, mostly Top Gun, but adds its own great jokes to the plot with outrages slapstick humour!

Part 2 - Wasnt as great. It sends up alot of movies and the plot changes completly into a difreent type of movie! But if you can, the edition thats available in regoin 4 at the moment of Part one and Two togther in the same package is worth getting!

Put simply, this is one of (if not THE) greatest spoof comedies off all time. I have literally seen this movie over 50 times and it NEVER ceases to make me laugh uncontrollably. Lloyd Bridges has to be the funniest character in the movie...hands down. This movie needs a 10 out of 5 star rating, but this is as high as I can select :0)

Where in the heck is the DVD???????????

No real plot, no real emotion just scene after scene of hilarious stupid humor, just the way a movie should be made.

"Ah! I lost my cap! Swing around and we'll pick it up" "We're on the mission sir" "Ah, good thinking. Put Rubertawitz down in a life raft to mark the spot." "We could be out here for days sir" "Then put some food on the raft! Do I have to think of everything. We'll tape all his favorite show, he won't miss anything. Fine, how am I suppose to be an Admiral without my cap. It's out there all alone, and I'm here powerless to do anything about it."

We start off with ace fighter pilot Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen) who originally got kicked out of the NAVY but is returning to help them save a mission, code name "Sleepy Weasel". Harley has his own problems like overcoming the death of his father and getting along with a snobby brown noser Kent Gregory (Cary Elwes). Adding to the confusion is Ramada Thompson (Valeria Golino),a beautiful shrink, who is Kent's girlfriend and Topper's love interest. They go head to head when Ramada & Topper's affection becomes obvious at the bar, and Kent declares war on Topper.
Among the other pilots is Pete "Dead Meat" Thompson (William O'Leary), Jim "Washout" Pfaffenbach, Kowalski (Kristy Swanson), Lt.Comm James Block (Kevin Dunn),and Admiral "Tug" Benson (Lloyd Bridges).
Topper & Kent is definatley NOT the only story going on here. There is the death of "Dead Meat", "Washout" struggling with wall-eye vision, a deceitful commander trying to abort the mission, and an incompetent admiral that doesn't know which you shoot: fish or duck.
But c'mon, you didn't really watch this movie to make sense out of it did you? You watched it for the same reason you watch any of Jim Abrahams movies-you want a good laugh!! And I guarantee you, you won't be disappointed! Don't try to analyze it. Just have a good time!!!

LOL. This movie rocks. part deux is just as good. It is just a silly stupid type movie.. If you don't like stupid funny don't bother watching. This movie is wicked sick!

This "Top Gun" spoof gets mixed emotions for me. Charlie Sheen, Cary Elwes and Lloyd Bridges are definitely the high points of the film, they are hilarious! So is this film, but towards the end during the last battle scene it gets dull. This is supposed to be a comedy, but they leave that for an almost serious battle sequence with just little gags thrown in every now and then. When you are laughing hard most of the time, you notice when the film drags. My personal favorite part is the wall eye vision. Overall, I really did enjoy this movie; it just started to drag a little towards the end, but picks up again right at the end