Casey Sander Movies

Sally Field goes the Roseanne route in Punchline. Field plays a housewife and mother who suddenly develops the urge to be a comedienne. Her comic instincts are on target, but her timing and delivery stinks. Tom Hanks, a stand-up comic with a few years' experience under his belt, offers to teach Field the ropes. As they get to know each other, Hanks and Field begin to pick up on each other's shortcomings; though Hanks has far more talent than Field, for example, he has a positively ruinous habit of expressing his deep-down dislike of everyone else in the world, and this frequently alienates his audience. Writer-director David Seltzer times Punchline like a good joke; he continually sets up for the expected, then pulls a last-minute fast one, keeping the film lively and unpredictable throughout. The supporting cast, coincidentally including future Roseanne star John Goodman, is uniformly superb. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dan Aykroyd must have practiced for months to perfect his Jack Webb inflections for Dragnet. Screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz's directorial debut (also written by Mankiewicz, along with Aykroyd, and Alan Zweibel) is a gentle spoof of the legendary '50s television police drama -- pitting '50s conservatism smack up against the attitudes of the '80s. Basically, the film is another 48 Hours or Beverly Hills Cop clone. Aykroyd stars as Joe Friday, the nephew of the original Friday. But with his brown suit, fedora, and lockjaw, he could just as well be the incarnation of Jack Webb. He is involuntarily assigned a smart alecky, street-wise partner, Pep Streebeck (Tom Hanks), and they are appointed to investigate a series of religious cult murders in L.A. The two cops follow the trail to a phony televangelist, the Reverend Jonathan Whirley (Christopher Plummer). From there, they are only at step away from uncovering an Orange County-based religious cult calling itself P.A.G.A.N. (People Against Goodness and Normalcy). After sneaking into a secret ceremony, Friday falls in love with the sacrificial victim Connie Swail (Alexandra Paul). So much so that even after his superior Captain Gannon (Harry Morgan, reprising his role from the '60s revival of the Dragnet program) orders him off the case, Friday continues on, with the requisite car chases and crashes that usually climax any '80s cop movie or comedy. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Not to be confused with the 1975 TV movie Bloodsport, this 1986 production was a spin-off of the recently cancelled police drama series T.J. Hooker. William Shatner is back as the aforementioned Hooker, a cop on special assignment to Hawaii (where the film was lensed). Accompanied by longtime professional colleagues Stacey Sheridan (Heather Locklear) and Jim Corrigan (James Darren), Sgt. Hooker endeavors to protect U.S. Senator Stuart Grayle (Don Murray) and his wife, Barbara (Kim Miyori), from terrorists, only to find that the assignment isn't quite as cut and dried as it seems. Telecast May 21, 1986, on CBS, Blood Sport did not result in a wholesale weekly revival of T.J. Hooker, as the producers evidently had hoped, though reruns of the original series continued to be seen on CBS' late-night schedule until September 17, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this flat attempt at comedy by the director of the Police Academy series, Neal Israel, a brash Dana Cannon (John Murray, brother of Bill) lands in a crooked re-education school for delinquent drivers, run by Deputy Halik (James Keach, brother of Stacey). The objective is to lord it over the miscreant drivers sent to the school (wrongly given citations and tickets by cops out to fill a quota, according to opening sequences) and make some money in the bargain. Deputy Halik has already decided to flunk out anyone in his classes, with the objective of impounding their cars and then auctioning off the vehicles to the highest bidders. Dana, the irrepressible new student, manages to unite the other put-upon drivers at the school into a single, determined faction -- and trouble quickly brews. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In Body Double, director Brian DePalma pays homage to the Alfred Hitchcock movies Vertigo and Rear Window, adding a few grotesque touches all his own. Craig Wasson plays Jake, a struggling actor who keeps losing jobs because of his claustrophobia. To make matters worse, his girlfriend has walked out on him, so he has no place to sleep. His pal offers him the use of his apartment for the evening. The apartment happens to be equipped with a huge picture window and telescope, enabling him to spy on his beautiful neighbor Gloria (Deborah Shelton) while she undresses. He also bears witness to her brutal murder. And then he meets a porn star (Melanie Griffith), who has just taken a job posing as the late Gloria. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide