Top Secret!

Directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, Top Secret! follows American rock star Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer) as he travels to East Germany and soon finds himself caught up in a deadly political plot. Filmmakers Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker, working from a script written with Martyn Burke, deliver a hit-and-miss comedy that benefits from its stirring performances and smattering of hilarious set-pieces, as the movie, which admittedly contains little in the way of forward momentum, progresses through an almost patchwork narrative that tends to emphasize laughs over coherence – with this vibe rarely as problematic as one might’ve feared, ultimately, given that a lot of this is undeniably quite amusing (and funny). Kilmer’s charming, go-for-broke turn as the agreeable central character goes a long way towards elevating the proceedings on a regular basis, and it’s clear, too, that Top Secret!‘s overall impact is heightened by Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker’s persistently (and impressively) irreverent approach to the thin material – which, when coupled with a fairly memorable climactic stretch (eg an underwater fist fight that really must be seen to be believed), cements the picture’s place as a consistently watchable (yet thoroughly erratic) effort from ZAZ.

**1/2 out of ****