best movie i've ever seen.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Seeking out bad movies that I missed in my youth is not a regular practice of mine but I did want to see the movie Alan Spencer mentioned in the audio commentaries on the Sledge Hammer DVD boxed sets. Spencer mentioned David Rasche's performance in Best Defense as one of (maybe the only, can't remember) reason he wanted Rasche to play the lead in his police satire sitcom, Sledge Hammer. It is extremely easy to see the connection in the performances. Rasche plays, Jeff. It's not clear whether or not Jeff is a KGB agent or an industrial spy who buys and sells information to whoever wants to buy it. The movie feels like it comes to an abrupt halt when he's off the screen and everything that happens after that aspect of the story feels painfully anti-climatic. It could be because there's no real action in the third act that makes any sense. The history of this movie is that it didn't test well at all and in order to try and salvage the project, Eddie Murphy was hired to film separate scenes to sort of jack it up in a comedy sense. The patch in doesn't work. Because Dudley Moore's character is involved with designing a component for tanks, Eddie Murphy plays an Army Lieutenant who is testing (it has to be later right?) the tank, presumably with the component in use. Much of the third act features a back and forth. From flashback to Moore trying to fix the component to flashforward, to Murphy in a situation where said component needs to work. Back and forth, back and forth and in the end, it just stops going back and forth. I guess mentioning this means this review has spoilers.The movie has a fine cast. They really don't have much to work with which is fairly obvious. Dudley Moore's main comedic contributions is sex jokes and a kind of understated buffoonery throughout. Eddie Murphy in his own scenes come across as improvised jokes in army fatigues and in a tank. This is Murphy in his prime and he's entertaining but if all of his scenes were together in their own short film and not spliced in, it would be more enjoyable though Murphy has been better and done better. If I want to see old Eddie Murphy footage, I wouldn't watch this, I'd watch SNL reruns, Beverly Hills Cop, and 48 hrs. When looking for a laugh, aside from Moore and Murphy, there's just Rasche whose Jeff character is an excitable psychotic. He commands the scenes he's in which isn't difficult since most of them feature Dudley Moore who is like the straight man in a comedy routine. The movie really is only worth seeing for Rasche's performance and that's especially true for Sledge Hammer fans. I like most things the Second City alumnis were involved in. Raschi was a member in the 70's and Murphy was briefly in the 80's. Moore was great in Pete and Dud/Derek and Clive. They could've all been better served with a better script but there doesn't look like there's much for them to work with outside what they themselves could bring to their roles.

I felt this was an interesting concept for a movie.Two characters separated by time and place, but connected by one piece of equipment, on a tank.It of course had its moments of cheese, but most comedies do.Moore's performance was good,as was Murphy's.The only really bad performances were the two female leads,Kate Capshaw, and Helen Shaver. Capshaw chews the scenery, but she pretty much does that in all of her movies, and certainly was no worse in this movie than in Space Camp.Helen Shaver's performance wasn't horrible, but she tended to whine a bit too much.Tom Noonan as the Soviet spy/surfer dude, was a scream,and the FBI surveillance scene made my sides hurt. My overall rating on this movie, is a solid 6,above average, but not terrific.I did feel the concept was very innovative, flashing back and forth from 1982 Southern California, to 1984 Kuwait.So, if you can find this movie in the bargain basement rack,for say 2 dollars or less, it might be worth it to have a look, otherwise, wait to see it on cable.

I cannot believe the appalling "tripe" I'm hearing from some IMDB users about this and other "bottom 100" IMDB movies.After only a few hundred votes, this movie makes it into the bottom 100??? How is that fair? Only a few hundred stuck-up movie critic wannabe's rate this movie and it gets a bottom-of-the-barrel rating?This movie is pretty good, especially when you consider it was one of Eddie Murphy's first movies. It was a little dull, but hardly worse than a 4-6 rating.Please people, let's save the 1-3 ratings for the TRULY horrible movies out there. If you give bad ratings to movies like this, you completely invalidate the entire system. These ratings have to be weighted by the number of people who voted -- you can't take 100 votes and call that comprehensive!!!

Thus movie is sorry in the broadest sense of the word. Paramount wished it wasn't there. Dudley Moore wished he was funny. Eddie Murphy wished he hadn't cried 'I love Iraq! I'm not in this war! I'm from Cleveland!'. The BBC wished it didn't broadcast the pile of trash. Kate Capshaw (Steven Spielberg's wife) wished she wasn't in it (humming the Indiana Jones theme so she must be longing for the Temple of Doom (1984) or something). US government wishes it wasn't involved in Arabia and that Eddie Murphy didn't drive around in a tank in Kuwait. As a gyroscope the movie keeps up its own pity and regret. The story destructs itself. The worst element of the movie is the score: it absolutely keeps on dragging low to the ground and pulls every potential idea of any other collaborator of this sorry project back into oblivion. Not strong, not viril and certainly not penetrating. You wouldn't believe there's actually a novel of this material.A positive thing about the story is that the footage of the DIP-engineering process is alternated with footage from the present (two years later) with Eddie Murphy in a tank cruising Kuwait and Iraqi soil, approaching a climax. Bye bye belly button. Maybe Troma could distribute this more effectively. The only real comedy in this movie comes from the David Rasche. RIP rather than DIP: 2/10