Hot Shots! Part Deux

Directed by Jim Abrahams, Hot Shots! Part Deux follows Charlie Sheen’s Topper Harley as he’s lured out of retirement to help rescue several prisoners of war (including Richard Crenna’s Denton Walters). Filmmaker Abrahams, along with cowriter Pat Proft, delivers an agreeable yet perpetually erratic comedy that’s barely able to justify its already-short running time, as the movie’s emphasis on jokes and gags over plot and forward momentum paves the way for a hit-and-miss midsection that’s as much the latter as it is the former. (Some of this stuff is admittedly quite funny, including a terrific bit involving skydivers and Topper’s desperate use of a chicken as an arrow.) It’s clear, as well, that Hot Shots! Part Deux benefits substantially from the go-for-broke efforts of its various performers, as Sheen’s first-class work here is matched by a roster of such appealingly eclectic periphery players as Miguel Ferrer, Valeria Golino, and Rowan Atkinson – with Lloyd Bridges’ stellar turn as the dimwitted American President certainly standing as an ongoing highlight. And while the whole thing never quite becomes the classic spoof picture for which it’s obviously striving, Hot Shots! Part Deux remains watchable enough thanks to its proliferation of affable elements.

**1/2 out of ****