I Watch Films: Police Academy

 

Police Academy

The mayor has lowered the standards for joining the police academy leading to a variety of oddballs joining. Amongst them is Mahoney, a repeat minor offender, who is offered a choice by Police Captain Reed; go to jail or follow in his father’s footsteps and go to the academy. He plans to get himself thrown out, but the Commandant has arranged with Reed that he can’t be expelled and he can’t quit voluntarily. The academy deputy, pompous martinet Lieutenant Harris, at the direction of the police chief, plans to make the unsuitable cadets lives hell so they will resign.

We have a variety of zany characters, Hightower, who is huge; Jones who impersonates noises, also does martial arts while speaking out of sync; Tackleberry, who is obsessed with guns; Fackler, accident prone; and on the women’s side posh Thompson and mild-mannered Hooks. Harris picks out two cadets to be squad leaders, and they bumble about trying to get Mahoney expelled. When Harris tries to get the location of the party at the weekend he directs them to the Blue Oyster , which is a gay biker bar and they find themselves trapped there by burly leathermen who dance with them.

In retaliation they hire a prostitute and hide her in Mahoney’s room so that he will fail inspection; trying to get her out unseen she and Mahoney hide under a lectern while the Commandant gives a speech and she performs oral sex on him. Looking back the Commandant sees Mahoney peering out; this is then ignored until the very end of the film. This is about the level the film’s pitched at; jokes that are crude and blunt, but moderately amusing.

Hightower wrecks a car after Hooks is racially abused and is expelled. Mahoney takes the blame for a fight, the cadets pulling together against Harris and the squad leaders, is also expelled. Meanwhile out on patrol with an experienced officer Fackler throws an apple which hits a man; blaming the wrong person a fight breaks out which becomes a city-wide riot. The cadets are drafted in, Mahoney joining them, and taken to the wrong spot, in the middle of the fighting. The squad leaders get their guns taken from them, Harris is taken hostage, then Hightower rescues him and he and Mahoney are let back in, complete the course and it’s a happy ending.

The 80s sitcom movie that practically defined them, in part because of the (sigh) six sequels. A lot of low stakes pranks and goofs, some silliness, a bit of casual homophobia and a fine disrespect for authority from these [checks notes] cadet police officers. And then at the end an extended action sequence! The best jokes, at the expense of the designated villains, are signalled in advance to allow us anticipation, but don’t hang about, as we move on to the next exercise or their attempt at revenge, maintaining a high energy level throughout.

Watch This: Quintessential 80s comedy movie, linking old fashioned ones with modern gross out versions
Don’t Watch This: Dated, unclear, mostly pranks