Review: Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Sly Stallone stars as tough cop Sgt. Joe Bomowski, whose uber-macho slob world is turned upside down when his strangulating, interfering mother (Estelle Getty) comes to stay. She embarrasses him at work (baby photos and such- ZZZzzzz), interferes in his love life with Lt. Gwen Harper (JoBeth Williams), and manages to witness a murder. Thinking she’s helping her son’s career, she lies to the other police officers about what she really witnessed, as Stallone finds himself investigating the death of a gunrunner, flanked by his whiny mother. Roger Rees plays the smarmy villain, with Martin Ferrero and Gailard Sartain his boob henchmen. Richard Schiff is a gun shop owner, with Dennis Burkley doing illegal business outside out of a van.

 

I decided to give this notorious 1992 bomb from competent director Roger Spottiswoode (“Terror Train”, “Under Fire”, “Turner & Hooch”) a second chance. The verdict? It’s still one of the worst films ever made, featuring an embarrassed Sly Stallone, a thoroughly unlikeable Estelle Getty, and absolutely, positively no laughs whatsoever. But that’s what you get when you sit down to a supposed comedy that features Roger Rees (“If Looks Could Kill”, “Robin Hood: Men in Tights”), Martin Ferrero (who was in the Stallone flop “Oscar”- which I actually liked), and Gailard Sartain (the “Ernest” movies). The ‘cute’ titles animation are another dead giveaway that you’re watching a turd.

 

Getty’s character, meant to be endearing, behaves in an entirely unrealistic and frankly irritating manner. The scene where she cleans Stallone’s gun (not a euphemism, you dirty pervs!) is especially moronic, as is the notion that Mommie dearest thought an illegal automatic firearm purchased out of a van (sold by the trustworthy Dennis Burkley, no less) would make a nice present for her police officer son. Intentionally stupid or not, it isn’t funny and is thus twice as stupid for the attempt at humour. Oh, and surely no one, old lady or not, decides to vacuum the fucking house at 4 in the morning in a house that isn’t theirs, while their police officer son is trying to sleep. Not even Betty White could make this character interesting, charming, or funny, but Getty is especially teeth-grinding.

 

I’m not even sure anyone here knows what kind of comedy it was meant to be, as it’s neither dark enough to be black comedy, nor are the characters likeable enough to work otherwise. Ving Rhames shows charisma for his 10 second cameo as a hood, and I won’t ever say anything bad about JoBeth Williams or Dennis Burkley, but this film is appalling. It reminded me a little of a sketch comedy flick I saw a while back (“The Onion Movie”, perhaps?) where there was a fake trailer for a new Steven Seagal movie called “Cock Puncher”. The trailer was brilliant, but there’s no way it could be stretched to feature-length. I feel like this film is a goofy-arse trailer stretched to feature length, except even the trailer isn’t funny. A complete failure. “Kindergarten Cop” it ain’t. It’s not even “Turner & Hooch”. At least Tom Hanks and that damn dog were somewhat likeable.

 

The pathetic screenplay is by Blake Snyder, William Osborne, and William Davies (the latter two having had success with “Twins” before going on to write another flop, “The Real McCoy”, co-starring Sartain). Apparently Sly considers this his worst film, but geez, I’d have a hard time splitting between this, “Rhinestone”, and “Stayin’ Alive” (which he directed but did not star in). “Cobra” was pretty crappy too, now that I think of it.

 

Rating: F