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This is kind of funny and, for the most part, enjoyable. On the surface it looks like another comic cop thriller but, really, the core of the plot couldn't be older. That is -- it goes way past "The Gay Divorcée," past the Greek or Roman from whom Shakespeare stole "A Comedy of Errors," back past the masques, winding up somewhere I would guess around Homo cromagnonsesis in Les Ezyies de Tayac. The mistaken-identity plot is framed by a bit of violence. First, Dreyfus gets into a fist fight with a perp he and Estevez are chasing (Estevez is nothing much more than a straight man in this movie) and the two combatants fall into a huge container of fish and barely escape being filleted by the Chinese workers. The second involves a shoot out between Aidan Quinn's villain and a lot of cop cars and owes a lot to the chase in "Bullitt", although done mostly for laughs. At the end there is another strictly conventional shootout and fist fight, aboard a boat, on top of rolling logs (this is Seattle), and in a timber mill which gives us a good idea of how gigantic saws are used to turn logs into planks -- and men into planks as well, given half a chance.

Quinn is excellent, but so is almost everyone else. Madeleine Stowe is drop-dead gorgeous, with or without Hispanic makeup, and she can act too. Dreyfus is very funny. He is caught in all sorts of embarrassing situations and gets a chance to display that expression of abject humiliation that he does so well. He gets a chance to do a lot of physical comedy too, running around wearing a pink sun hat, wrapped in a shawl, while pursued by the police. And when he inadvertently reveals he is spying on Stowe, during a phone call in which he warns her that her food is burning, she demands to know how he knew. He tears his eyes from the telescope and tells her, "I -- er -- I could hear is sizzling in the background." Then he turns his face to the side, wrinkled with disgust, and hisses to himself -- "Heard it SIZZLING in the background?" There are all sorts of run-ins in which she still thinks he is the phone repairman he's been pretending to be, and they're all engagingly cute.

It's not a masterpiece of comedy, and the realistic violence is out of place. But it's smoothly, professionally done. There is an icky them song, but the composer gives Stowe's scenes a bouncy fingido-sabor-Latino sound. I've seen this a couple of times and keep waiting to be bored by it but have never quite been able to get over the hump.

This is a forumulaic buddy movie, but it works. Madeleine Stowe is just wonderful. Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez also work very well. With good supporting acting all around, this movie works, when normally I would be rolling my eyes.

Good acting and some very good one-liner writing make what could have been a bad movie (like "Another Stakeout") and enjoyable experience. I recommend it for some good-hearted fun.

I think this is one of the under-appreciated movies from the 1980s. It blends realistic action and comedy well, without taking itself too seriously. I agree with reviewers that Dreyfuss in this movie proves he was very good at comedy movies if they were written well, like this was. And Aidan Quinn is very good also (in fact, from "Desperately Seeking Susan" in 1985, to "Stakeout," to 1994's "Legends of the Fall" he has consistently given reliably good performances). For a late 1980s movie, it has aged fairly well. It's almost hard to believe that this movie came out only two years after Estevez was in "The Breakfast Club." I wish there were more movies like this that blended action and comedy as well as "Stakeout" did.

There is something about Richard Dreyfuss that makes me think of George Clooney. I believe Clooney is one of a very few slate of actors that can make any scene work no matter how good or bad it is written. Dreyfuss is like that too. I remember a particular scene in Jaws when he brings wine over to Brody's house and Brody cracks it open and decides to drink from it. Dreyfuss tries to warn him by saying, " You might want to let that breathe.... nothing, nothing. " He takes a small scene and makes it that much more interesting by his excellent interpretations of who they are. Chris Leece is his best acting since the seventies. He is so much fun to watch and it is his relationship with Bill ( Estevez ) and the other two stakeout cops ( one of them being a very funny Forest Whitaker ) that make this film a treat to watch. Its strengths are its dialogue and acting, and although Badham directs a fast and frenzied film ( much like Beverly Hills Cop ) some of the movie just doesn't fit, especially the end where it resorts to Bruce Willis tactics and ends with explosions and death. But that aside the film excels, and it is a very funny film written by the same guy that had a hand in The Fugitive.

Here we have a film about two cops ( Dreyfuss and Estevez ) that are assigned to watch the home of the girlfriend of an escaped convict that may be on his way back to see her. Dreyfuss ends up getting a little too close to his subject and before long he ends up falling in love with her. This puts Bill in an awkward situation because not only is it against the rules and ethics, but he has to now cover for Chris during briefings with his superiors and he also has to keep the other two cops on the stakeout from finding out about Chris' involvement with their subject. The subject's name is Maria and she is played with richness by Madeline Stowe ( The General's Daughter ).

Some of the hilarity in this film lies with the two sets of cops trying to out do one another in their pranks. It seems that they have worked on stakeouts together before and it is shenanigans like leaving dog poop in the fridge and putting marker on the rims of the binoculars that add some nice comedy to the routine. Dreyfuss also has one hilarious line that had me laughing for quite some time. When they first get their description of who it is that they are watching, it describes Maria as 5'5 and 342 pounds. " 342 pounds! OHHH, she could be the house! "

The film works great as a comedy and only so so as a violent action film. I think the film would have benefitted if it stuck strictly to comedy and instead of reverting to a chase and explosions at the end, they could have written it better so that it is resolved with words and comic genius, just like the rest of the film. But overall this film is worth seeing for its hilarity.

**** One final note. Chris and Bill have movie line contests. It is a great way to pass the time and when Bill asks Chris the one line " Well this was not a boating accident. " Chris doesn't know. That is a nice touch seeing as it was Dreyfuss' Matt Hooper from Jaws that said that. That's a nice piece of inside Hollywood and it plays really well.

Richard Montgomery (Aidan Quinn) makes a daring escape with the help of his cousin Caylor Reese (Ian Tracey). He killed an FBI agent and then they killed a prison guard. Chris Lecce (Richard Dreyfuss) and Bill Reimers (Emilio Estevez) are assigned to stakeout his old girlfriend Maria McGuire (Madeleine Stowe). Phil Coldshank (Dan Lauria) and Jack Pismo (Forest Whitaker) are the other two cops assigned the other half of the stakeout. She's suppose to be 313 lbs but instead, Chris starts falling for the beautiful McGuire.

This has some mildly funny moments. Estevez is solid as the happily married man. Dreyfuss is the one with the fun brash single guy. They have good chemistry together and it's mostly a good buddy cop movie. It's missing some bigger laughs. The guys are not necessarily comedians for that to work.