Étroite surveillance

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.

"Buddy Cop" movies were all the rage in the 80s, and 'Stakeout' is filled to bursting with the genre's clichés. But the fresh titular premise and charming performances by, and great chemistry between, stars Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez help to lift it above the fay and make it feel fresh. Oh, and then there's Madeline Stowe. My God, Madeline Stowe. She is just... wow. But, she also gives a really nice performance here, and she and Dreyfuss make for a strangely good screen couple.

'Stakeout' is a breezy, fun and subtly clever action/comedy (emphasis on the "comedy"). It's not groundbreaking, but it is solid entertainment for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

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 ****

Stakeout is one of those movies that makes you wish you owned a time machine. Not only does Stakeout capture the magic of the '80s, it also brings forth a world many of us miss, and does so in a way that not many movies of that era managed to do. What is so great about this movie is that you always feel you are part of it somehow. You are right there with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez, almost like you are their invisible partner. That's how good those two are. You will laugh and feel the excitement until the very last minute. To me, Stakeout is a feel good machine that leaves a strong impression on anyone who misses the era it was made in.

P.S. How beautiful was Madeleine Stowe?

I think this is one of the under-appreciated movies from the 1980s. It blends realistic action and comedy well, without taking itself too seriously. I agree with reviewers that Dreyfuss in this movie proves he was very good at comedy movies if they were written well, like this was. And Aidan Quinn is very good also (in fact, from "Desperately Seeking Susan" in 1985, to "Stakeout," to 1994's "Legends of the Fall" he has consistently given reliably good performances). For a late 1980s movie, it has aged fairly well. It's almost hard to believe that this movie came out only two years after Estevez was in "The Breakfast Club." I wish there were more movies like this that blended action and comedy as well as "Stakeout" did.