Cops and Robbersons

This is a truly funny film that the whole family can watch, and enjoy. Amazing! Mom cooks enough food for a White House reception, the kids are mostly normal except the youngest, who is channeling Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and Dad can't get a bagel without cream cheese on it. The cops are standard film cops except that Jack Palance is even more overpowering than usual. His best line (you have to be there) is "Never throw a cat at me again." He never yells, although he has plentiful provocation. This is refreshing; we laughed through the whole movie.

Norman Robberson (Chevy Chase) is a typical husband and father who lives in the idyllic suburb of Pleasant Valley with his wife Helen (Dianne Wiest) and three kids with young vampire obcessed Billy (Miko Hughes), delinquent middle son Kevin (Jason James Richtor), and teenage daughter Cindy (Fay Masterson). While Norman goes to his mundane office job everyday, Norman often fantasizes about being a cop and has an encyclopedic knowledge of all the cop shows catching them in re-runs and renting episodes from video stores. When the police department learns notorious and violent counterfeiter Horace Osborn (Robert Davi) is hiding out in Pleasant Valley, the department sends gizzled veteran cop Jake Stone (Jack Palance) and his young partner Tony Moore (David Barry Gray) to stakeout the area using Robberson's home as the surveillance point. Norman is excited for the opportunity to get in on the action, but Stone finds himself irritated by Norman's antics.

Cops and Robbersons is a 1994 comedy vehicle for Chevy Chase that was one of the more "family skewing" roles the comedian took in the 90s as Chase's previous films such as Memoirs of an Invisible Man and Nothing but Trouble were underperformers and the market started favoring broader more family orientated comedies popularized by the works of Chris Columbus and John Hughes. Released in April of 1994, the film opened in an unexceptional second place behind sleeper hit Four Weddings and a Funeral in its sixth weekend and eventually closed out its run with $11 million making it financial disappointment. Critical reception was dismal with many making unfavorable comparisons to the film Stakeout and also making unfavorable comparisons between Chase's Norman Robberson and his Clark Griswold character. Cops and Robbersons is the kind of movie where it feels like they started with the title and then crudely tried to build a movie around it.

The movie is comparable to other broad police comedies of the time such as Stakeout, but is more targeted to the same audience that made Kindergarten Cop and to a lesser extent Cop and a Half successful. Cops and Robbersons is better than Cop and a Half by virtue of having better performances and a seemingly smoother production, but it's rather lacking when compared to Kindergarten Cop Chevy Chase is a funhouse mirror exaggeration of his Clark Griswold character as he plays Norm Robberson as so massively thickheaded you wonder how he's able to hold down a job or keep a roof over his head due to his multitude of idiot decisions that are divorced from reality. Chase is always at his best playing characters who fit his wiseass persona such as how Clark Griswold is properly written in Vacation and Christmas Vacation, Fletcher in Fletch or Fletch Lives, or Ty Webb in Caddyshack. The character that Chase plays so doesn't match his talents that it honestly feels like it was more written in mind for someone from a sitcom of the time like Tim Allen from Home Improvement or Ed O'Neill during Married with Children because these are basically sitcom characters doing sitcom things. Jack Palance is doing his usual growling intense performance, but he did give me some laughs such as his explanation to Robert Davi's character that Norm recently underwent a lobotomy (which probably makes more sense than it should) and the lion's share of what few laughs there are in this film mostly come from Palance.

Cops and Robbersons has a talented cast and isn't painful like some comic misfires, but it's also not nearly funny enough to sustain its paper thin premise that relies on the old staple of the "idiot plot" to keep itself going. The end result is yet another unfortunate misstep in the 90s leg of Chase's career but at least it's more watchable than his late night talk show.

I accidentally fell upon a showing of this comedy on a night show on TV, and was immediately drawn into the films parody music. I got a good feeling for what's worth to watch. But I had never heard about the movie before. And boy, was I right.

I looked this up on IMDb, after watching what I thought was a charming and hilarious movie, and was baffled about a score of 4,7. I understand this film didn't hit the right spots back in 1994, but I'll tell you: That was wrong then, and it's wrong now. If it felt was right to bash this back in 1994, this is still what should be considered as a gem now.

The film is a typical Chevy Case movie from the 80'ies and 90'ies. It's almost like the Fletch movies or the National Lampoon's best vacation movies. But then, it's also Fletch- director Michael Ritchie. What's worse; this is rated at Ritchie's worst movie. Well, it's so wrong! I laughed way more then I have in many recent movies.

Here Chase is doing a great job of a cops and robbers story, where Chase's strange family, called the Robbersons, is encountered by and awful lot of challenges, as he is when on his best. Jack Palance is great as the old "Dr. Jeckyll and Mister Hyde"-detective, and so is Robert Davi as the scaring and dangerous Osborn, which is staked out from Robbersons house, as their new neighbor. Diane Weist is lovely naive is the wife, and the kids are also great, with extra kudos to Miko Hughes as the youngest son with a Dracula-mania. He is so funny!

This film is stupidly funny. It's silly, and it gets sillier the longer into the film you get, In the good way. It's charming, with hitchcockian mystery music, it's well played, an it's funny without full of foul language, being harassing or embarrassing the wrong way, like many comedies do now.This is plain funny, with stupid persons, which is all quite lovable. In style of "Dumb and dumber" I recommend this for the whole family.

Chevy Chase's family comedy "Cops and Robbersons" might have been made during the period where his box-office success was in a rapid decline (as this was somewhat a flop and the previous two before it), but I've always have a soft spot for this professional looking, but farcical comedy outing and that was mainly for the amusingly dry performance of Jack Palance as a weathered detective.

Norman Robberson is a mild-mannered accountant who spends his free time watching TV cop shows. Soon enough he's living that life, when detective Jack Stone and his partner use his house as a stakeout to watch his neighbour that's a dangerous counterfeiter. Stone then finds himself caught up with the family and Norman's cop show obsession could just endanger the whole operation.

As much as I enjoy watching a Chevy Chase film, it does pale in comparison to his early work but watching it again it surprised me how well it actually stood up. While not overly funny, it kept me watching. Teaming up again with Michael Ritchie the director of his smash 1985 hit "Fletch", Ritchie and Chase might not have the luxury of that smart script, but "Cops and Robbersons" is still sprightly written with the odd witty remark and amusing depictions of middle class suburbia. It's a typical formula, but it raises some inspired shenanigans if growing a little repetitive with its choices. Thinking about it, there was probably just not enough humour there or effectively brought across. It's madcap, accidental gags relying more so on the psychical and visuals with comical interactions between the dysfunctional characters. Ritchie's direction is straight-up, competently tidy with a slick streamline to it and having confidence in his timing.

The cast balances out quite nicely. Chase gives his usual quick-on-the-feet performance, while alongside him Palance superbly grits his teeth. Dianne West is equally good with a level-head turn and Robert Davi suitably goes with a mock serious approach in a pigeon hold villain role. There's decent support by David Barry Gray, Jason James Richter, Fay Masterson, Miko Hughes and Richard Romanus.

Following the utter failure of his TV show, Chevy Chase began a long stretch of embarrassing roles. First off, he starred in this ridiculous - if cute - story of some cops hiding out with a suburban family to catch a criminal. The whole movie is all about gags; if you like that, then this is the movie for you (I will say that the whole sequence where the cops first meet the family is pretty funny). But if you like really creative humor, then you'll probably want to avoid "Cops and Robbersons". Chase, Jack Palance and Dianne Wiest probably want to downplay their participation in this idiocy. And to think that Michael Ritchie also directed such greats as "The Candidate".