Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993) - Laugh your pants off

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+ Best Big Hit Movie of the Year + Best Spoof of the Year  

 

Star Sheen fires off a shocked rooster from a bow on this dead-pan hilarious poster for Jim Abrahams' Hot Shots! Part Deux

Harley Topper has gone into exile somewhere in Asia, but he is brought back home to the States for an important mission: Save the soldiers, who were supposed to save some American hostages of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but who has instead also been taken hostages themselves.

 

Hot Shots! Part Deux is written by co-writer/co-producer Pat Proft (Ringo (1978, TV-movie)) and great Wisconsinite filmmaker, co-writer/director Jim Abrahams (Airplane! (1980)). It is the sequel to the pair's huge hit Hot Shots! (1991).

This comedy hits the mark: One almost cries out in laughter, and everything just seems tighter than in the already hilarious first film: The gags, the references, the guest appearances (including Rowan Atkinson (The Lion King (1994))!) and the howlingly funny scenes. Charlie Sheen (Scary Movie 3 (2003)) is a riot in Hot Shots! Part Deux.

 

Related posts:

Jim Abrahams: 1993 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Hot Shots! (1991) - Abrahams and Co. present another rip-roaring spoof comedy

Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Airplane! (1980) - The deadpan/spoof/crazy-comedy classic!

 

Watch a 2-minute clip from the movie here

 

Cost: 25 mil. $

Box office: 133.7 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 5.34 times its cost)

[Hot Shots! Part Deux was released 21 May (USA) and runs 86 minutes. Sheen was paid 4 mil. $ for his performance, and worked out voraciously to beef up for the part. Shooting took place from October 1992 - January 1993 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #2, behind Sliver, to a 10.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#5-#5), grossing 38.9 mil. $ (29.1 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Abrahams returned with An Introduction to the Ketogenic Diet (1994, video documentary), ...First Do No Harm (1997, TV movie) and theatrically with Mafia! (1998). Sheen returned in Deadfall (1993). Hot Shots! Part Deux is rotten at 56 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hot Shots! Part Deux?

Battle for Haditha (2007) - Strong, realistic portrayal of an Iraq war massacre

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+ Best English Movie of the Year

A harsh-looking poster for Nick Broomfield's Battle for Haditha

QUICK REVIEW:

Battle for Haditha is the true story of how a road-side bomb in the town of Haditha in Iraq in 2005 cost an American marine his life, whereupon his fellow marines shot and killed 24 civilian Iraqis, and the American Defense Ministry began 'handling' the 'incident'.
London-born filmmaker Nick Broomfield (Ghosts (2006)), - often of documentaries, - has made Haditha a docu-style retelling of the massacre; ultra-realistic and ultra-uncomfortable to watch for the same reason. The film shows in detail and with great precision the tragedy from several angles; from the two men, who set off the road-side bomb, to corporal Ramirez, (unfortunately played a bit unstably by Elliot Ruiz (Shapeshifter (2005))), who orders and partakes in the bloodbath. The film visualizes the perhaps greatest single war crime in the latest Iraq war.
Between the emotionally blunted marines, the screaming, local women and the stony faces of the top brass in the chain of command, it is clear, when seeing Broomfield's version of the story, that the 'battle' was won solely by the terrorists, who we see gain much new support after the massacre, and it all goes to expose the awful logics of the repugnant creature of war.

Battle for Haditha is a very strong and recommendable, grim tale of one of the many tragedies of the late Iraq war. It was impressively shot on location in Jordan and used Iraqi refugees and real US military personnel as actors and extras to achieve its great sense of realism.

Related posts:

2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch the trailer here

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

What do you think of Battle for Haditha?
Name some other fine war movies about some of the recent wars, (post-9/11 let's say)