I Watch Films: Police Academy 5 Assignment Miami Beach

 

Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach

Captain Harris discovers that Commandant Lassard, in charge of the Police Academy, is older than the state mandatory retirement age. He lets the commissioner know, so Lassard will have to retire and Harris will be commandant. Lassard is saddened by this, but it turns out thanks to his long service he’s been nominated to be Police Officer Of The Decade at the Police Chief’s Conference in Miami Beach. He decides to go along with several of the characters from previous Police Academy films (not Mahoney, Steve Guttenberg bowed out to spend some time on the stage).

Harris, realising that now the Academy will be his, he has to gain the respect of his men, decides to go as well, in style to impress everyone. Obviously his call is intercepted and Jones, the guy who does funny noises, instead books him on a rickety old cargo plane with chickens and stuff.

Meanwhile some plot develops. On the night before they fly out there’s a diamond robbery and the thieves are on their way to Miami with the diamonds hidden in a camera. By coincidence their bag is identical to Lassard’s. During various slapstick pratfalls due to Lassard dropping golfballs everywhere the bags get swapped. Lassard assumes the camera is a gift for his retirement and carries it everywhere. The thieves learn of their mistake, attempt to track Lassard down.

Lassard’s nephew, Nick Lassard, is police officer in Miami, and joins in the pranking of Harris, though it’s a bit lacklustre. They gang hang out on the beach having fun, then get involved with a few police demonstrations at the conference. Eventually the thieves track down Lassard and take him hostage; he thinks this is the policing methods demonstration and offers them advice on making his kidnapping more successful. We get an airboat chase across the swamps, and a stunt fight sequence on a dock.

This mixes things up a little from earlier films, though what that really does is show how little there is going on. The Police Academy gang on holiday are basically goofballing around the same as when they’re at work; they lose Mahoney and gain Nick Lassard, a slightly zanier guy who also chases women and has a touch of his uncle’s clumsiness, but otherwise is just a less interesting version. And Zed is gone, which is sad, makes the film less distinctive.

Watch This: Some good stunts, some fun jokes
Don’t Watch This: The best jokes are cruel and the film can’t commit to it being a tragedy that Lassard is being forced out versus the paucity of Harris’s ambition