Cops & Robbersons (1994)

Masterful Movie

Good start, but then it gets ruined

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Mob hitman Horace Osborn (Robert Davi) lives next door to the Robbersons (Chevy Chase, Dianne Wiest) in the suburbs. Police detectives Jake Stone (Jack Palance) and his young partner are assigned on a stakeout in the family home.The obvious comedy comes from an odd couple pairing between Chase and Palance. It does not come off well and none of the comedy is funny. Norman acts unnecessarily stupid. It's all stupid. His actions make no sense. It makes the unfunny comedy even more unfunny.

30 minutes into 'Cops and Robbersons' I found myself clawing at the sides of my seat cushion. An hour into it I found myself with my head down tugging at my hair and groaning loudly. This sounds a bit childish so I will elaborate. 'Cops and Robbersons' is a terribly unfunny movie made by talented people who have made excellent films and stars actors who have made me laugh in the past so it is frustrating when I see them entrenched in a laughless screenplay. When a good actor takes a bad screenplay you can always sense their talent trying to get out.The screenwriters have assembled a comic formula out of the nuts and bolts of other movies and tried to fasten them together to make a funny movie. This never works because 'Cops and Robbersons' is a movie pitch, not a movie itself. It's the beginning of an idea that doesn't need fine tuning so much as it needs a complete overhaul.The movie takes The Robbersons, an ordinary Ozzie and Harriet family and puts as its head Norman Robberson (Chevy Chase) a man who is obsessed with cop shows. The dilemma is that a mobster (Robert Davi) has moved in next door and the authorities want to use the Robbersons' home to stake them out. Leading the stakeout is a rough-hewn cop (Jack Palance) who rolls his own cigarettes and always seems to have one planted in his leathery mug. Saddle that with a nagging wife, a daughter who develops an unconvincing romance with the mobster's son and a 5-year old who plays vampire and bites Palance on the neck.These are nuts and bolts not inspiration. They are the stuff of bad sitcom writing – the kind of writing that gets a show cancelled. When I see a movie like this that is directed at a sitcom loving audience I always marvel at how much less funny it sounds without a laugh track.Now onto the cast starting with Chevy Chase. My favorite Chase comedies are the ones that allow him to be a smart-ass mostly because he can do it without sounding like a bore. I've seen it in 'Spies Like Us' and 'Funny Farm' and the 'Fletch' pictures and a little in the first 'Vacation' movie. But here he's an annoying dope who is always in the way and just bumbles around reminding me that his Gerald Ford routine was funnier when he did it in a five minute sketch on 'Saturday Night Live'.Jack Palance surprised me in 'City Slickers' by taking his usual tough ol' buzzard persona and injecting it with humanity, warmth and truth. Here he's the same crusty old guy but the warmth and truth are gone because the movie doesn't have time between painful slapstick.Diane Weist has done her best work for Woody Allen. So, I try to measure Diane Weist's characters thusly: Would the character she's playing be convincing if she were playing it in a Woody Allen movie, in most cases yes. So, she's playing a good (albiet underwritten) character here in the wrong movie. There is one rather serious moment when she talks to Palance about his smoking that I thought was the movie's only ray of sunshine.I don't know what dragged director Michael Ritchie into this film after directing Chase in 'Fletch' and directing the marvelous (and somewhat similar) 'The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom'.By the way, you will note that I have avoided describing any of the specific scenes. That's because I just feel that this talented cast has had enough.

Horrible, corny Disney-style "family comedy" about a notorious criminal (Jack Palance) who moves in with family man Chevy Chase and, eventually, causes a whole lot of trouble.Very predictable and unfunny scenes occur in which there are some bad bonding moments and silly exchanges of dialogue. Chase and Palance don't blend well together, and they're hardly the next Riggs and Murtaugh...

"Cops & Robbersons" strongly reminds me of a Griswold Vacation movie. In fact, I kept expecting Chevy to call his kids Rusty and Audrey. The only difference is that the family in this film don't get to go anywhere. They are stuck at home with a couple of cops as live-in visitors. The police are doing surveillance on a criminal who lives in the house across the street.Chevy is up to his old "Boy, am I a clueless ... or what?" routine. What's extremely frustrating is the fact that nobody around him gives it any thought. Look at these two examples: First, he hides the two cops in the closet (don't ask!) and his wife comes downstairs. She asks what the noise is coming from the closet. He states that it is the cat. Then the daughter comes down the stairs holding the cat. What does his wife think about that? Nothing. Another example is when Chevy asks his neighbor (who is under surveillance) if he could use his bathroom. While his neighbor is on the phone, Chevy sneaks upstairs and cuts open the guy's mattress to the point that springs are actually popping out. What does his neighbor think of this? Nothing!I think you get the idea. The people in this film are so completely ignorant that the comedy falls flat. To make it worse, Jack Palance is downright vicious. I was absolutely stunned at something he stated to one of Chevy's kids. This is supposed to be a family movie.The only reason that this film gets 2 stars instead of 1 is the presence of Dianne Wiest. She appears as if she is in a film all her own. She is caring, charming and feisty all at once. However, I would only recommend this movie for diehard Wiest fans or for people who enjoy watching Chevy Chase act really dumb for 90 minutes. 3/10