La mejor defensa... el ataque

This is one of those few films from my childhood that made a strong impression on me, mainly for the Eddie Murphy's WAM joke. I remembered it had something to do with a faulty new tank in the Iraq war and US engineers at home desperately trying to make something work in it. Oh the good memories.

But now that I rewatched it, well… Eddie Murphy and the tank take up only 1/5 of the movie, while everything else is dedicated to a poor plot about a looser caught up in a spy novel, later dropped and substituted for poor planning by the ministry of defense.

Besides Murphy tank escapade, only the Russian spy was entertaining to watch, but he only appeared in a couple of scenes. Everything else was a chore to watch. The special effects aren't that impressive. The idiot boss is just intolerably dumb. The portrayal of foreigners were horrid. And I have no idea why the wife and child subplot was even necessary, because you could literally replace them with a sealing fan to resolve the main flaw. Oh… Guess I forgot those parts for a reason.

One of the main problems was the editing of events – the tank was developed after the main plots got resolved, but the movie was spliced like it all was happening simultaneously. Unfortunately that meant that the tank flaws were already resolved, or not, so there was really no suspense.

Let's just say the best parts of the movie were about 5-10 minutes long and I would not have missed anything rewatching it. At some points I even confused Dudley Moore's acting for a Rowan Atkinson impersonation. That confusion kept me more entertained then the actual movie.

At least some of it is good to riff over.

No amount of alcohol can render this film bearable. I saw Eddie Murphy on Letterman a few years after this dog was released, talking about why he has to be careful with which scripts he accepts. He said, "A few years back I made a film called Best Defense. And it was bad. [looks into camera] REAL bad!"

An ironic aspect of this otherwise indigestible flop is that the final concept, although created as a desperate, expos facto attempt to inject life into the film, might have actually worked, had it been in the plan from the beginning.

Although the future plot line (or present, according to how you wish to perceive it) involving Murphy was filmed later, the concept of one plot line's actions having a direct result on another in the future could have been interesting. All it needed was a script, production values, creative foresight and inspired performances by the actors. This film, unfortunately, had none of the above.

Moore is convinced that a device slated to be installed on a tank is defective in its design, and must try to fix it before it's built and put into use. Two years in the future, sure enough, Murphy is driving a tank which uses this very device. Will Moore improve the design in time to save Murphy's life? Well, it's little confusing to flash back and forth between these plot lines, but they do manage to culminate into a semi-climactic moment, but much too late to save the viewer from mindless boredom.

Even though this film was not entertaining, it is prophetic. This movie predicts that Iraq will invade Kuwait, and that the US will be involved, 7 years before it actually happens.

Perhaps Sadaam got the idea from this movie, and it convinced him that he could win. After all, he did watch CNN.

This is no masterpiece, but it's pretty good and offers lots of laughs and excitement. The ending is especially satisfying.

Dudley Moore does a pretty good job. I'm aware he has received acclaim for some of his roles. This isn't one of them.

I know David Rasche best as a reckless cop supposedly based on Dirty Harry. He's nearly as talented here.

Eddie Murphy dies what he does best: laugh and cry. However, I've seen better from him.

Don't expect too much, and I don't believe this film will disappoint.