Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol
April. 02,1987 PGA new batch of recruits arrives at Police Academy, this time a group of civilian volunteers who have joined Commandant Lassard's new Citizens on Patrol program. Although the community relations project has strong governmental support, a disgusted Captain Harris is determined to see it fail.
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Reviews
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
Well here we are again and its back to training...again! Yep this fourth time around Lassard calls on his most loyal men to train up a group of civvies for his new programme 'citizens on patrol'. Naturally the resident bad guy (this time its back to Harris) doesn't agree with Lassard's plan so he and Proctor are out to foil their plans, so dastardly.The idea behind this isn't too bad really, its a bit like special volunteer officers which we have here in the UK. So the general concept is sound, the problem is we are back at the academy focusing on training these new civvies and we're seeing all the same stuff all over again!!To cut a long story short, seeing as I've explained what happens in the academy for the last three film reviews, we see every character doing their unique thing all over again. This means more martial arts from motor-mouth Jones, Callahan is in the pool getting her huge tits wet, Tackleberry is on the shooting range (where else), Sweetchuck gets thrown around the place a lot, Hightower is on voice commands and Mahoney is lurking around the stereotypical blonde bit of fluff and dishing out his good deed speeches left right n centre.Everything in this film is virtually a replay on everything we've seen in virtually all of the last three films. The last three got away with it because they were more adult and the idea was still reasonably fresh, no longer does this apply. The whole film is very boring and extremely childish, on top of that nothing makes any sense now, its just bits n pieces thrown together.Mahoney, Tackleberry and Hightower perform a very elaborate prank on the three young guys simply to prove they aren't ready for the real beat. This whole sequence is completely nonsense, as if you would go to all that trouble for nothing, its total filler that isn't even amusing. There is a fight sequence on a docked ship against some ninjas (!), no idea why this happens or how the officers end up at the docks but hey. I honestly feel they stuck this in simply to utilize Nogata who cameos here, also another martial arts sequence for Jones who appears out of nowhere. He just pops up for this fight from literately nowhere.Add to that a vast amount of terribly cartoonish visual gags, pratfalls, blatantly obvious stunt doubles, terrible audio dubbing and pretty much no actual main plot (accept for the civvy training crap). There is a jail break midway through which serves as the big finale, this time its in the air with hot air balloons and old biplanes. Now I admit its all performed well with nice aerial stunts and whatnot but its so completely ludicrous. Why on earth would they chase the bad guys in hot air balloons? surely you'd just call in police choppers?? how the hell does everyone seem to be a dab hand at flying biplanes?? why am I even questioning a Police Academy flick? I might add that Hightower completely disappears for the last half of the film, odd, Bubba must have had better things to do.This film is quite 'famous' I suppose for a few things, firstly its one of Sharon Stone's early films as she was slowly getting more recognised. Secondly there is a young Tony Hawks in the film showing his skateboarding skills and thirdly there is also a young David Spade as one of the civvy recruits.This is easily one of the worst PA films in the franchise simply because they reuse every old trick and story sequence idea all over again. Yes I know most of the PA films do this but like I said up to this point in the franchise its been reasonably fresh. This just feels terribly dull, uninspired and has some of the worst comedy I've seen, you can't even call it slapstick, its just sh*t. Goldthwait as Zed is responsible for some of the worst acting, dialog and sequences in this film, not even Bailey as Harris can save this turd.Just to really hammer home the final nail in the coffin, right at the end out of nowhere, Mahoney and Sharon Stone's character are seen floating off together in a customised Police Academy hot air balloon. No explanation about how or where this special balloon came from, its just there, one final silly sequence to really take you out of the moment (if you were in the moment in the first place that is).3/10
This is the third sequel to Police Academy, where basically the filmmakers recycle the main plot from Police Academy 3. Instead of training new police cadets, Sgt. Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg) and company are assigned to train a group of civilian volunteers to fight crime.While the acting is OK, I thought the plot lacks any captivating action and is consumed by the same old gags and mediocre jokes. You might get a few chuckles here and there from the ongoing jokes, but you probably won't find much thrills in the action-less plot.The subplots involving Zed (Bobcat Goldthwait) and Laura's (Corinne Bohrer) fling and reporter Claire Mattson (Sharon Stone) were not elaborated upon and some of the more memorial characters were only on screen for a very short time, including Nogata (Brian Tochi), Kirkland (Colleen Camp) and Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes).Overall, it's not a very exciting sequel. Stick with Parts Two or Three.Grade D
Police Academy 4 (1987) ** (out of 4) The police force is overworked and understaffed so they come up with an idea to train citizens so that they can patrol their own streets. Of course our gang gets a group of rejects that they must train into shape. This was the beginning of the end for this series and while there are a few funny scenes the thing still can't keep afloat. The regular cast including Guttenberg, Smith, Winslow, Graf and Easterbrook are back but we've also got G.W. Bailey coming back as Harris, the main villain from the first film. Harris actually steals the film and gives an energized performance but that still isn't saying too much as the screenplay is very weak and basically just recycles jokes from previous films. Even the regulars seem rather tired and bored. Bobcat Goldthwait is back as well but most of his jokes seemed aimed at his bad speech. Heck, we even get a pre-fame Sharon Stone and David Spade but neither add much. The best sequence for me has always been the one where the veterans try to teach the new guys that they aren't ready to be police and take them out on the case of a voodoo man who is actually being played by Smith.
Of the Police Academy movies the worst of the bunch for me is the final movie in the series to star Steve Guttenberg as Mahoney. The jokes are the same, the cast is the same the only difference here is they are training citizens to help fight crime in a neighborhood watch type deal. Mauser is gone, replace once again by Harris and I liked Mauser better as he and Proctor to me worked better. Bobcat is back which is bad, as is most of the jokes in this very forgettable movie. Seriously, other than a plot point or two here and there it is very hard to recall this movie other than I did not care for it except for when Proctor ends up letting a whole slew of criminals escape and we have our typical Police Academy ending. I also remember the end with a hot air balloon and Harris. This one also tries to introduce new characters to the gang one overweight dude and an older lady stands out in my mind and for some reason in the next movie the overweight guy would be a cop which makes no sense.