Home Entertainment Guilty Pleasures – Hot Shots! Part Deux

Guilty Pleasures – Hot Shots! Part Deux

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Hot Shots Deux (2)

If you grew up in the 1980s/90s, then chances are that you must have seen at least one Zucker, Zucker and Abrams movie. From Top Secret through to The Naked Gun, that trio of producers had a genre that they not only owned, but branded with a red hot poker and rodeod around with.

But out of all the parody films that they made, the second Hot Shots might have been their very best collaborative effort.

Topper Harley is found working as an odd-job-man in a monastery. The CIA wants him to lead a rescue mission into Iraq, to rescue the last rescue team, who went in to rescue the last rescue team who… who went in to rescue hostages left behind after Desert Storm. The President is Tug Benson, who also likes to be in on the action. Basically, it’s a send-up of all the big shoot-em-up Rambo/Robocop/T2/Commando-type movies.

There’s a certain line that never gets crossed when parody films are made, and that’s to include an original actor from said parodied film in the adaptation. Hot Shots didn’t just ignore that unwritten rule, they straight out chucked into a furnace, buried the remains and forgot about it when they cast Richard “Colonel Trautman” Crenna as Colonel Denton Walters. And it worked beautifully.

It’s one thing to have a pre-tiger blood Charlie Sheen suiting up as a Rambo imitation who fights with candy on his fists in illegal Asian boxing matches (GUMMI BEARS! SPRINKLES! GUMMI BEARS! SPRINKLES!), but throwing in that extra layer of Ramboness just worked wonders for the film.

Hot Shots Deux (4)

And then you’ve got returning legend Lloyd Bridges as the senile president of the United States, Tug Benson. One of the best actors of his generation, and pretty damn effective as a helium-huffing buffoon who is deadset on revenge-murdering Saddam Hussein. And those damn background gags. They’re typically ZZ and A material. And they’re typically brilliant as usual, manifesting in the weirdest of ways, from metaphorical boxes of courage and fear through to the army doing a sultry dance number when you’re not looking.

Hot Shots Deux (3)

But when it comes to taking the piss out of movies of that time period, Hot Shots just does it so damn well. From Star Wars through to Rambo and the Wizard of Oz, nothing was sacred. It’s the kind of film that is the sum of its parts, with all of them coming together to create one of the best parody films of all time.

And twenty years on, few films have ever managed to match it, let alone surpass it.

Last Updated: July 17, 2013

29 Comments

  1. Gavin Mannion

    July 17, 2013 at 13:46

    Was this the one where they fried the eggs on her stomach?

    Reply

    • Andre116

      July 17, 2013 at 13:47

      That would be first one.

      Reply

      • Kromas

        July 17, 2013 at 13:51

        God I loved this movie.

        Reply

        • Andre116

          July 17, 2013 at 13:53

          Cracks me up every time. Like when they are flying in the beginning and the one pilot flashes his headlights to overtake another jet. 🙂

          Reply

          • RinceWind

            July 17, 2013 at 13:55

            They tied my shoelaces, BASTARDS!

          • Lourens Jordaan

            July 17, 2013 at 14:13

            “I’m putty in your hands”
            “In my hands, nothing turns to putty”

          • RinceWind

            July 17, 2013 at 14:18

            Hahah! *Goes of to ‘buy’ a copy…

          • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

            July 17, 2013 at 13:56

            That was just brilliant. Man, now I wana go watch these again!

          • RinceWind

            July 17, 2013 at 13:57

            And Top Secret, “Chocalate Mousse” Hahahhahaha!

          • Trevor Davies

            July 17, 2013 at 13:58

            …what fake dog poop?

          • RinceWind

            July 17, 2013 at 14:00

            Hahah! Or when the phone rings, and it’s huge in the forefront, but then the Nazi walks up to it and it IS huge! I actually studied Top Secret at Uni, it was for post-modernism and its deliberate breaking of the forth wall

          • Trevor Davies

            July 17, 2013 at 14:01

            Do you know a little german? Yes, he’s right over there. *DIES LAUGHING*

          • RinceWind

            July 17, 2013 at 14:01

            HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

          • Lourens Jordaan

            July 17, 2013 at 14:19

            Nick Rivers: Is this the potato farm?

            Albert Potato, Resistance Member: Yes, I’m Albert Potato.

          • Lourens Jordaan

            July 17, 2013 at 14:22

            Hillary Flammond: Who do you favor in the Virginia Slims tournament?

            Blindman: In women’s tennis, I always root against the heterosexual.

          • Andre116

            July 17, 2013 at 14:12

            “Let me know if his condition changes”
            “He is dead”

          • Andre116

            July 17, 2013 at 13:59

            The gate is locked…from the inside. (standing at a waist high garden gate)

          • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

            July 17, 2013 at 14:00

            playing cards in cockpit

          • Andre116

            July 17, 2013 at 14:07

            “That’s an interesting perfume.”
            “It’s Vicks. I have a cold.”

          • Lourens Jordaan

            July 17, 2013 at 14:17

            “What are you reading?”
            “Great expectations”
            “Any good?”
            “Not all I hoped for.”

          • Andre116

            July 17, 2013 at 14:28

            Haha. Was thinking of that one as well.

        • Matewis Jubilai

          July 17, 2013 at 14:29

          There where the pilots land their jets on the carrier and the one parks his f-14 in a handicapped zone and another opens his cockpit canope to unload shopping bags with groceries.

          Reply

  2. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    July 17, 2013 at 13:54

    Dat chicken shot hahahahaha

    Reply

    • Trevor Davies

      July 17, 2013 at 13:54

      I was just going to say that lol

      Reply

  3. RinceWind

    July 17, 2013 at 13:55

    I loved this movie so much. I think the problem of today’s “Scary Movie 67724943) is that they don’t understand satire. Hot Shots 1 and 2 were extremely clever to those who were able to look beneath the surface. Brilliant!

    Reply

  4. Trevor Davies

    July 17, 2013 at 13:57

    The body count counter, the torturer looking sympathetic when the guy said he’s not afraid of pain because he’s been married… twice, the tiny little bit of boat he’s left standing on with a mound of shells, etc, etc, etc

    Reply

    • RinceWind

      July 17, 2013 at 13:58

      There are too many to list. And now we have shit like Scary Movie, old school DOES RULE

      Reply

  5. CypherGate

    July 17, 2013 at 14:23

    No other parody style movie comes close to the old ones. They were just great!

    Reply

  6. WernerE

    July 17, 2013 at 18:09

    I can proudly say, I own both Hot Shots 1 & Part Deux.

    Reply

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