Recruits

Canada's answer to the successful low-brow comedy "Police Academy" is this particularly tactless outing "Recruits". While an obvious low-budget rip, it's still just as stupid, sleazy and infantile (maybe more so) meaning a lot of brainless fun. Can't have it any other way. These types of features aren't meant to be polished art, but instead no-nonsense escapism even if its trash at heart. All I can say there, at least it has heart!

Mayor Bagley is preparing for the Governor to pay a visit to his town with the hope that the agreed highway is approved. To make an impression he gets Police chief McGruder to hire a temporary traffic patrol unit from its local citizens. However McGruder see this as chance to set a plan in motion of screwing everything up, by sabotaging this request by signing up a group of misfits which will surely cause nothing but trouble and shine a bad light on Mayor Bagley on the big day. Why this… well McGruder wants Bagley's job.

It reads very similar to "Police Academy", but while the gags are familiar and fairly lame it's still deliriously charming. Director Rafal (Screwballs 1, 2 & 3) Zielinski (who I just watched his enjoyable comedy "State Park" two weeks back) keeps this fluff buoyantly brash and always on the move with chaotic situations tailored by endless topless nudity or sardonic dialogues. You can't have these type of films without a bouncy soundtrack, and it covers the bases with a rocking title song too. But it's the characters that stand-out, even though the performances are enthusiastically forced. Some recognizable faces stream through; like the delightful Lolita Davidovich, Colleen Passard and a convincing Mike MacDonald as the smarmy McGruder. Outside Tony Travis riot turn as Sergeant Stonewell with his uptight shtick, I found the minor characters of the ragtag group to be the most amusing; Mark Bluntman as Clint… Eastwood… yeah moments involving some sort of identity crisis were rib-tickling. Herb Field as the drunken cop, while subtle it seemed to work and Annie McAuley is transfixing as the lusty blonde nymph… the mayor's daughter. There are able lead turns from Doug Annear, John Canada Terrell, Stephen Osmond and Alan Deveau (who would be known for his roles in the two "Screwballs" films.

Ridiculously entertaining and raunchy goof-ball b-picture.

This was clearly made to cash in on the Police Academy films which were popular at the time. It's about a bunch of dopes who are recruited to join the police force in a small town and the predictable comedic problems which ensue. The comedy is about as desperate as you can get and there is lots of footage of people on motorbikes. It makes you wonder if the producers were trying to make a biker film. Stick with the Police Academy films instead!

The dreaded 'Police Academy' series was considered by many a snobbish movie buff to be the ultimate in low-brow, tasteless humor. Imagine how those film-snobs must feel seeing something like 'Recruits' - an even more tasteless take on the same premise.

I, for one, love it! Never had a problem with (most of) the 'Police Academy' movies, and this makes me laugh even harder because the humor is even more juvenile and gross. There's something about a movie that just doesn't even try to show a little restraint that tends to crack me up in a 'I can't believe they did this' kind of way. Another good example of this is 'Hamburger: The Motion Picture".

The jokes are brazenly funny, the acting isn't very good - even by a young Lolita Davidovich (who was still going by Lolita David at the time) but it works, there are generous amounts of gratuitous t&a, and the bad guy's right hand man is so over the top I can't stop laughing anytime he's on. He barks everything he says to the recruits and shouts one specific word for greater effect (e.g. "There will be no WOMEN in your ROOMS!!!"). It's hard to describe how funny it is in the movie, you just have to hear it.

Anyway, 'Recruits' is great - I first fell in love with it when I rented it back in 1986 (if I remember correctly, the store just got it in and I was the first one to rent it) and I now own my own VHS copy which I watch every couple of years and laugh all over again. We need a DVD!

I keep watching Rafal Zielinski's 1980s T&A comedies even though I readily acknowledge that they aren't very good. They all seem to have a hard-to-explain likability to them even though the jokes consistently miss the mark and there isn't much to enjoy about them except for bare female flesh and a nostalgia factor if you're a child of the 80s.

In Recruits, the characters we are supposed to like are actually somewhat likable, which is not generally the case in Zielinski's films. As in all of Zielinski's efforts, the cast seems to be having a good time and they aren't taking their roles too seriously. And from a purely superficial perspective, there's plenty of attractive nude skin on display, most notably from Lolita Davidovich.

Unfortunately, the film simply isn't funny, which is obviously a fatal flaw for a comedy. Had I watched this movie when I was 13, or before the internet made nudity a click away, I might have enjoyed the over-the-top slapstick combined with copious amounts of nudity. But at three times that age, the proceedings got old pretty quick.

Worth watching if 80s sex comedies make you nostalgic. Otherwise, I suggest you pass on this one.

Despite the obvious restrictions in low-budget commercial film-making, the numerous funny, stupid, gritty and sexy ideas in this 'Police Academy' take-off, spring out at every turn, due in most part to the creativity of Canadian producer Maurice Smith of Maurice Smith Productions.

Kudos to lovely Lolita Davidovich riding around nude in a mayor's limo during a big-city parade; the gorgeous Elizabeth Harden and her sweet turn as a yacht owner's wife; 6-year old Sasha Dolgy challenging a Harley-riding cop to a drag race; the absolutely wild motorcycle stunts; and a great theme-song "Recruits - Ride Hard Live Free" by Michael Stevens and Curtis Lee (ideal for any number of motorcycle/car commercials).

There are some good ideas here ...