Uma Loira Em Apuros

Dodger bee bert used to rate movies less on their over all quality than on the principle of whether the movie achieved what it set out to. In this category i would categorically say "yes". A fairly solid cast rounds out this light fare and is able to elevate it above it's designation as a b-movie. A Tom Berenger vs Gary Busey scene is a hidden gem. Erika Eleniak does more than fill the roll of eye candy. Slightly more than cameos by Hopper, Glover, Stockwell, Bush, Cassel, and Forrest keep things moving and throw a bit of unexpected spice into the movie. McNamara manages in spite of true bona fides to carry the whole thing on a bit of pie eyed charm without devolving into saccharin crap. Is this movie going to rock your world? No will it be 90 minutes or so of decent entertainment? Check for yourself. I vote yes.

This movie has a bad rap but it's actually quite fun. It centers around two Baval officers who have to escort a female prisoner to a new location. The officers are portrayed by the handsome Tom Berenger and sexy William Macnamara. And the prisoner is the gorgeous and hysterical Erika Eleniak. The movie is quite fun and most of the jokes hit right where they should. It's also sexy and the three develop a believable and likable bond. Although unsuccessful at the box office and with critics the movie stands as an entertaining if slightly forgettable buddy comedy.

Budget: $15M Box Office: $1.6M

7/10

Lowbrow humor to spare in this low-budget knock-off of "The Last Detail." Undemanding fun...Hopper's direction is loose and raunchy (he also scores in a brief role as a horny traveling lingerie salesman) and Tom Berenger is great as a gruff, crusty military man stuck performing a transport detail with a scheming, wet-behind-the-ears private in tow. Don't expect a classic and you might be pleasantly surprised. Hardly a classic for the ages, but still quite enjoyable if you enter with lowered expectations. Plenty of clichés, but a few memorably funny sequences and some funny lines make it worth watching. Eleniak's considerable physical charms on full display don't hurt either.

Two naval officers (Tom Berenger and William McNamara) are given the task of driving a sexy waitress (Erika Eleniak) to prison. For some reason she doesn't want to go and sets out to waylay them.

I have seen some thin movies in my time, but this takes the biscuit. The entire props budget seems to have been blown on two navy outfits, a rusty white van and one of those waitress dresses that girls with good legs rent for fancy-dress purposes.

Director Dennis Hopper comes on for a moment to do his I'm-a-bit-mad act and Marilu Henner is desperate enough to play a bit part, but they are both done-with in minutes: leaving us stuck with the tedious threesome in a van somewhere in Middle America.

Curiously the thing seems to be influenced by the Jack Nicholson film The Last Detail (navy prisoner being led back to the stock), although that is a film that is actually worth going out of you way to see.

Yes Erica is appealing in a plastic, peroxide and staples-through-the-belly way, but the other two leads have nothing to offer other than briskness and/or dim-witted nativity.

For those interested in these things, the Baywatch blonde does get her clothes off a couple of times, but most viewers will have fallen asleep by the time her stand-up-all-by-themselves breasts come out.

Insomniacs watching on late night cable might be able might be able to make it through to the end, but anyone actually shelling out money for this ultra-cheap product will feel a fool afterwards. Trust me.

Navy officials Berenger and McNamara are assigned to escort prisoner Eliniak to start serving time but their trip doesn't go all that smoothly.

Despite the presence of the terribly annoying William McNamara, Chasers is really an O.K. way to spend less than two hours. Obviously it's not as good as 1973's The Last Detail but it has it's moments. Tom Berenger and Erika Eliniak compensate for McNamara and deliver good performances but the array of good cameos are sorely misused. Gary Busey and Crispin Glover provide a few chuckles but Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell and Marilu Henner have nothing to do here.

Still, if you're in a forgiving frame of mind and keep your expectations low this film quite alright.