Film Review: Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993)

Despite being the film that won the Cold War for USA, Top Gun became object of parody in Hot Shots!, 1991 film directed by Jim Abrahams. The box office success of the latter film guaranteed the sequel, which came two years later under title Hot Shots! Part Deux. This time object of parody was another successful piece of Hollywood’s Cold War propaganda – Rambo films.

Charlie Sheen returns in the role US Navy aviator Topper Harley, but this time the character fights on ground instead in air. Or, to be precise, used to fight on ground, because Topper Harley has abandoned his military career, having his heart broken by ex girlfriend Ramada Rodham Hayman (played by Valeria Golino), and now lives in Buddhist monastery in Thailand. In the meantime, his former superior, Rear Admiral Thomas “Tug” Benson (played by Lloyd Bridges), got elected to US President and sent various teams of top covert operatives against Saddam Hussein (played by Jerry Haleva). All of them got caught, including Topper’s friend and mentor Colonel Denton Walters (played by Richard Crenna). This finally makes Topper to join rescue mission, which is controlled by CIA agent Michelle Huddleston (played by Brenda Bakke).

Hot Shots! Part Deux, like most sequels, isn’t better than its predecessor. Thankfully, it isn’t much worse. This is mostly due to Abrahams and his co-writer Pat Proft wisely deciding that they pushed the envelope with parodying Top Gun in previous film and that they should do something different. In order to make new film parody of Rambo films, they almost completely retconned protagonist, by turning him into commando instead of naval aviator. On the other hand, their irreverent style of comedy doesn’t make this film much of an aberration. Charlie Sheen apparently enjoyed opportunity to spoof Sylvester Stallone and worked out very hard in order to gain as much of Stallone’s physique as possible. Richard Crenna was also delighted to spoof his own role of Colonel Trautman from Rambo films. On the other hand, Hot Shots! Part Deux lacks focus and, just like many Hollywood parodies from 1990s onward, relies on recent popular films like Terminator 2 or Basic Instinct as source of humour. This, together with references on Desert Storm and Arsenio Hall’s talk show, would make this film incomprehensible to younger viewers, just like the references to older films, like the meta-like scene in which Charlie Sheen meets his father Martin Sheen repeating the role from Apocalypse Now. Saturation comedy approach guarantees that some of the gags would work and some would not; the latter include scenes featuring British comedian Rowan Atkinson who briefly appears near the end of the film and whose talent seems to be completely wasted. Brenda Bakke, on the other hand, gives her all in brilliant and effective role of femme fatale. Hot Shots! Part Deux is mostly watchable and at times funny film, but those who watch it probably wouldn’t be too sad that the third film never got produced.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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