Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot follows police sergeant Joe Bomowski (Sylvester Stallone) as he attempts to solve a case despite ongoing interference from his overbearing mother (Estelle Getty’s Tutti). Filmmaker Spottiswoode, working from a script by Blake Snyder, William Osborne, and William Davies, delivers an exceedingly (and often excessively) silly comedy that couldn’t possibly be more erratic and uneven, and yet it’s equally clear that the movie, which runs an appropriately brisk 87 minutes, boasts a fairly amiable vibe that’s perpetuated by the smattering of entertaining set-pieces and the actors’ strong efforts – with, in terms of the latter, Stallone turning in a loose, charismatic performance that goes a long way towards smoothing over the various narrative bumps and lulls. And although the picture is rarely, if ever, able to wholeheartedly capture the viewer’s complete interest and attention, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot nevertheless does manage to come off as a consistently watchable comedy that’s hardly the disaster one might’ve anticipated.

**1/2 out of ****