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"Ooo, I love my job, I love it so much!"

[year/rating] 1987 R [genre] Cop Comedy [director] John Badham [starring] Richard Dreyfuss Emilio Estevez Madeleine Stowe Forest Whitaker

Tagline

It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it!

Summary Capsule

Two cops stakeout a cute honey in danger

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Justin's Rating: We're gonna need a bigger moustache
Justin's Review: You couldn’t go swinging a dead cat by its tail in the 80’s without hitting a cop buddy flick. And chances are, that dead cat would also be partnered up with a 9-year old gardening detective in a movie called Dead Puss And Roots. Did I work too hard to make that one connect? It’s okay. Let’s just move on to a new paragraph.

"That doesn’t stop it from being entertaining. Frogs in tiny tuxedoes tap dancing across your kitchen counter type of entertaining."

For a genre that sprung up in the TV landscape between the 70’s and 80’s, the clichés of the cop buddy formula sure took form rather quickly. There’s always two unorthodox cops, partnered up against all odds, and forced to hack out a weird working relationship. There’s always a spitting-mad police captain (who’s either a huge black guy or an old crusty white guy with a moustache), always bad cops on the take, always a lack of regard for proper police procedure. Stakeout is not very different (Emilio Estevez would soon come to parody it — and other cop buddy flicks — in Loaded Weapon 1), but that doesn’t stop it from being entertaining. Frogs in tiny tuxedoes tap dancing across your kitchen counter type of entertaining.

Chris (Richard Dreyfuss) and Bill (Estevez) are goof-off cops given a routine stakeout assignment: to watch the home of an ex-girlfriend of an escaped convict. For all of the doldrum of the job, they manage to make it fun with truckloads of witty repartee and by playing practical jokes on the other two cops who share the assignment with them. During the stakeout, Chris ends up falling in love with the girl they’re watching, etcetera etcetera, and then the end credits.

The best part about this movie is in the foolish relationship between the partners. They’re slobs, act like little children most of the time, and mess around more like real people would (and less like the carefully orchestrated movie people usually do). Guys need movies like this, because this is exactly what we love about hanging out with a good friend: little-to-no social etiquette to follow, eating pizza, and photographing naked girls from the house across the street. Dreyfuss and Estevez are obviously having the time of their lives, and that’s enjoyable to partake in.

It’s not perfect, but then, you’re not either. Seriously, what major motion picture have you filmed, edited, promoted and released lately? You Got Served? You’re pathetic, my friend. Stakeout has some traditionally boring action/thriller sequences bookending the flick, so my advice is just to fast-forward through them and learn new and fun uses for toilet paper.

It was a fishy crime caper, see? Book 'em for studliness, Danno! See? Guys do cuddle.

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• Hey, you gotta give them that breakout. They worked HARD for it.
• It’s 10 minutes into the film before we meet our main characters
• Mmm… yucky breakfasts and fish guts… I’m hungry!
• Love that cool hat flip
• A pretty young Forrest Whittaker as a cop
• All the cops bickering in the captain’s office… and the captain laughing at it
• Toilet paper trap!

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Nope.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez were having a movie trivia contest on the set one day. Estevez asked Dreyfuss to identify the movie that the line "This is no boating accident" was from. Dreyfuss didn't recognize the quote, despite the fact that he was the actor who said it in Jaws. Deciding that this was too good to pass up, this incident was re-enacted for the film.

Groovy Quotes

Bill: [watching Chris make air-humping motions] Um… Chris says hi.

Bill: Are you going to shoot pictures, or draw some from memory?

Bill: [reading a profile] And, the moment we've all been waiting for... 313 pounds.
Chris: 313 pounds?!
Bill: I would imagine that's fully clothed.
Chris: Oh my God, she could be the house! I hate this job!

Bill: [watching a girl undress] To protect and to serve.
Chris: Ooo, I love my job, I love it so much!
Bill: But I would appreciate it if you would not act like a walking hard-on while we're on the job.
Chris: Succinctly put.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Another Stakeout
• Loaded Weapon 1
• The Mighty Ducks