#230: Cops and Robbersons

Release Date: April 15th, 1994

Format: Streaming (Tubi)

Written by: Bernie Somers

Directed by: Michael Ritchie

2 Stars

I don’t like Chevy in 1994’s Cops and Robbersons, one of those formulaic ‘90s fish-outta-water comedies. That’s too bad, because despite the sitcom-esque premise, there are some things to like about this flick.

Director Michael Ritchie (Bad News Bears, Fletch) is well within his wheelhouse here, and what a cast he has to work with. Jack Palance, Dianne Wiest, Robert Davi, M. Emmet Walsh, Richard Romanus, and the kid from Free Willy. And that creepy little kid from Pet Sematary! It’s a bit of a star-studded supporting cast for 1994. Well, maybe not star-studded, but a fun cast nonetheless.

Fun, except for Chevy. He settles for a stale Clark Griswold imitation, and his schtick looks tired. His character, a Walter Mitty-like suburban family man named Norman, lives a quiet domestic life with his wife and three children, but inwardly he fantasizes about the fast life of a police detective. When a mob hitman moves in next door, and the cops want to move in and use the family’s home as a stakeout location (I know, dumb), Norman gets his hopes up that he might get to live out his fantasies in real life.

Plug Charles Grodin into this role and I think we have something. Or Martin Short. Or Billy Crystal. Shoot, give me Rick Moranis and I’m over the moon.

Instead it’s Chevy. While his fellow actors look excited to be in this crummy little farce (75-year-old Jack Palance is chewing up the scenery and oozing old man-charisma), you get the sense that Chevy arrived on set each day thinking, “How many more days is this shoot?”

It was this and then one last hurrah as the actual Clark Griswold in Vegas Vacation before Hollywood put Chevy out to pasture.