Welcome back, my lovelies, to the wonderful mythic world of The Series Project here on CraveOnline. We have entered a dark period, my friends, wherein I will be following through with my dim and distant journey through the world of the seven Police Academy movies. Now the Police Academy films have, as I mentioned in last week’s article, a poor reputation as being the pinnacle of hackneyed ’80s situation comedy films. I have found some of them (the first three, at any rate) to be somewhat enjoyable slapstick movies, and feel that the series gets a bum rap.
That is, until I watch the fifth film in the series, which we’ll be starting up with this week. Police Academy 5 was, you will find, kind of the dumpster of this series. When people refer to how contrived, dumb, and humiliating the entire series is, they’re usually referring to the fifth film. It was the first without Steve Guttenberg. It was the first to hurt.
I’m not going to beat around the bush any more. Let’s just pick up where we left off, and go to Miami with…
Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (dir. Alan Myerson, 1988)
Alan Myerson is also a TV veteran, like many of the series’ previous directors, who has a small role in the film as “cigar smoking man.” His screen name is “A.L. Meat.”
I began to formulate a cockeyed theory by this film. Since the city where these people work is never named, they refer to themselves as simply the Metropolitan police. I realize this can be applied to any city, but perhaps their city is indeed… Metropolis. Like where Superman lives. It would explain why they’re not used to dealing with any real crime; Superman has them covered. Okay, maybe it’s not a good theory. I mention this as, as the title suggests, Police Academy 5 takes place in Miami, which is the first mention we’ve had of a real time and place.
PA5:A:MB gets started when Harris, snooping through Commissioner Hurnst’s desk, discovers a file, revealing that Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) has surpassed the required retirement age. The age is not specified. This means Lassard must go to Miami to attend a country-wide police convention and make a speech, and, since he can’t operate without his favorite recruits, drags them all along.
Well, not all of them. Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg) is visibly absent here. Our irascible hero has dropped out. Also absent are Bob Goldthwait, Tim Kazurinsky, and Bruce Mahler. Actually, Mahler wasn’t in parts 3 or 4 either. It’s getting harder to keep track of who is around, but we do get the feeling that characters are missing. We are still, however, in the company of Marion Ramsay, Bubba Smith, Leslie Easterbrook, David Graf, Michael Winslow, G.W. Bailey and Lance Kinsey, and, of course Gaynes. Guttenberg is replaced, after a fashion, by Matt McCoy, who plays Lassard’s nephew, Nick. Nick occupies the space of “flirty white guy, and instigator of pranks,” which was largely the role Guttenberg played in all the previous films. Nick is, indeed, given a love interest in the form of Janet Jones, who looks really good in a swimsuit. I learned after the fact that she is the wife of Wayne Gretzky, and has appeared in Playboy magazine.
Your gratuity. You’re welcome.
Anyway, there’s actually something of a story in this film. A trio of thieves have stolen a pile of diamonds and fled to Miami at the same time as this police convention. The lead thief is played by an overacting Rene Auberjonois and one of his sidekicks is played by Archie Hahn. Since the story doesn’t strain to be anything more than a boilerplate sitcom, there is a bag mix-up at the airport, and Lassard accidentally ends up with the thieves’ bag. The thieves spend the film trying to locate Lassard, break into his room, and get the diamonds back. Inevitably the break-ins go awry in some slapstick fashion.
Something sad began to happen in this film, which is why I site it as the series’ low point. Harris is still a hardass, and he is still the butt of everyone’s pranks, but things seem to have taken a cruel and tragic turn here. In the previous films, Harris was a hardass and a blowhard, but it was always in the line of duty, and his cadets and inferiors would act out in a form of playful rebellion. The pranks were, perhaps, punishments larger than the imagined crime, but they were always committed with an attitude of playfulness. In part 5, the pranks seem unduly harsh, and largely unwarranted. The police are all on vacation here, and no longer in the line of duty. Harris may be a jerk, but he’s not doing anything more than harshing their mellow. Does he really deserve to be sunburned, set on fire, forced onto a plane with goats, coated in bird poop, and kidnapped? It seems less like playful rebellion anymore, and more like bullying. I started to feel sorry for Harris. A man who is destined to be a jerk, and destined to be harmed by his peers. He has no real friends. He is alone.
Anyway, there’s our usual two acts of wacky gags, a fight scene, and some romantic dalliances. But, y’know, chaste ones. The word “dork” is used a lot. Eventually the thieves, stooping to extreme measures, kidnap Lassard and find themselves making demands from a hotel penthouse. This is amusing: This police convention everyone is attending stages a mock crime every year that the attendees are encouraged to solve. As such, Lassard assumes that his kidnapping is a hoax, and is delighted to play long. He offers advice to his kidnappers, plays cards with them, and they all begin to like him.
There’s a big chase, Harris is also kidnapped, and our heroes get to ride around on those swamp-skipping noisy fan-backed boats that you see in every film and TV show set in Miami. Of course the good guys apprehend the bad guys. Thanks to this, the police commissioner announces that Lassard need not retire, and can stay on for as long as he wants. This is a baffling move, as Lassard seems genuinely senile at this point. He only ever plays golf and obsesses over his fish. Indeed, that goldfish crops up a lot in this film, and a point of comedy seems to be that Lassard is traveling with golf clubs and a goldfish.
More than ever, the actors seem tired. The new blood and exotic locale aren’t enough to disguise the fact that the jokes are stales and re-used. This one was hard to sit through.
