The movie shows a veteran cop, Mac (Gene Hackman), who is saddled with a brilliant partner, Ellis (Dan Aykroyd), that has a personality disorder-whenever he gets stressed, he starts acting like various television characters. Other than that, he's sharp as a tack but it obviously puts the team in great danger when they begin investigating a case with a lot of hostile bad guys. The team stumbles across a case involving a porn tape made by Hitler (yeah, that Hitler) and it's political ramifications. The bad guys don't want the tape released and will stop at nothing to prevent it from being distributed. If that sounds like a cliché, it's because the movie is full of them.

Had the movie stuck with a more down to earth premise, and let Hackman be the center of the movie, it could've been much, much better. On the other hand, had it let Aykroyd have a more fleshed out character, or at least kept him focused on the few imitations he could pull off without looking like a drunk at a party, it "might" have been better. As it was, the movie seemed to suffer from the same multiple personality disorder that Aykroyd's character did and the results were less than satisfying. Let's face it, Hackman's portrayal of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection movies were near definitive examples of a "tough cop" in movies. While he has the range to be something else, his character was obviously plucked out of that role to be put here in a fish out of water setting against Aykroyd's zany misfit. Maybe if Jim Carrey or Robin Williams were in this role, it might've been better but that's a stretch of the imagination too. Poor writing can be compensated for by great acting but that's not usually the case.

The story being so bizarre certainly didn't help matters much. Rather than look at the subject seriously, this being a comedy after all, it took the low road and fumbled there too. Hackman as a straight man didn't work and it looked like the director figured this out ten minutes into the movie but wasn't able to adjust accordingly. If he truly felt trapped by the suits pushing this movie to be completed, I could almost feel sorry for him. It wasn't the worst movie I've seen in the last 13 years (it was originally released in 1990) but it sure didn't make good use of the cast. As such, I can only fairly rate this one as a Skip It.

Picture: The picture was presented in 2.35:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color. The fleshtones were generally accurate, as were the other colors, although there were plenty of moments where the focus was a bit off. I did notice a few compression artifacts but not many.

Sound: The sound was presented in Dolby Digital stereo and sounded pretty good, though not excellent. The channel separation was decent but not anything I'd push as a selling point for this flawed movie. There were lots of choices in subtitles and it was closed captioned as well.

Extras: trailers, paper insert with chapter listing

Final Thoughts: Well, the movie was a stinker and I think Tri-Star knows it too. On the dvd cover, it mentioned that the movie is "...loaded with personality." Okay, is real life, when someone is setting you up with a blind date and they tell you that the person has a "nice personality", what's the first thing you think: "Wow, what a great opportunity to meet someone." or "Oh great, another loser."? Your answer will depend on how much you should see this movie. Even a fan of the leads will want to avoid this one.