Étroite surveillance

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.

Somewheres in between 'Beverly Hills Cop' and 'Lethal Weapon' you find this. Good cop/buddy action flick, plenty of humour, the violence is for real, the chemistry between the two leads and Stowe Just right. I enjoy the scene where she shifts her position JUST so slightly, its quite erotic, while the pranks the two cops play on each other are quite funny too.

Its fun watching how put out Estevez gets with the older guy whose clearly not acting his age.

There's nothing terribly deep here, and some of its really dated-Lethal Weapon-ish graphics, the cars, the angry black squad leader, the music(Miami Sound Machine, anyone?), etc, traditional boatchase/fight/battle to the death inside hellacious warehouse/factory finale, etc all par for the course.

But no biggies. The second one wasn't nearly as good's this one.

*** outta ****

I really enjoyed this movie! It's filled with laughs and excitement, and never once was I not entertained. Next to "48 Hours" I think this is one of the best buddy cop movies I have yet seen. Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez make a wonderful team, with dead-on chemistry. Dreyfuss steals the show with his hilarious performance, proving he's just as talented at doing broad comedy as he is intense drama. That especially shows in the scene where he's about to walk out of Madeline Stowe's house, but doesn't want to be recognized, so he asks her to lend him a hat. The way he handled that scene was so magnificent, and there are many other farcical moments that he handled just as efficiently, and with the wrong timing and delivery those scenes could've collapsed. Estevez plays the straight man, also doing a magnificent job, and you really feel his envy when he's spying on Stowe, who's being hit on by Dreyfuss. I loved the scenes where the rival cops pulled pranks on each other. Speaking of which, Forrest Whitaker pops up in a fine early performance. And Madeline Stowe is great and sexy, as always.

Sure, the plot is quite predictable, but as I said I was always entertained, thanks to sharp writing and great performances. John Badham is a fine action director, so he kept those action scenes filled with suspense and tension. "Stakeout" is not a film that will keep your brain occupied--as a matter of fact there are some scenes that require you to check your brain at the door--but I assure you that you'll have a damn good time.

My score: 8 (out of 10)

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.

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.