Ryan Harrison (Leslie Nielsen) is a world-famous concert violinist who plays his instrument like Jimmy Page plays his guitar. Harrison is invited to a party but when his host, Hibbing Goodhue (Michael York), is murdered, Harrison is wrongfully accused. No one believes his story that the murder was committed by a one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged man. Harrison is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Maybe he should have asked for a preemptive pardon but that would probably have been too ludicrous an idea for even a parody film like this one. An accident on the way to prison allows Harrison to escape. He must now prove his innocence while being pursued by the determined Fergus Falls (Richard Crenna).
Wrongfully Accused is the only film to be directed by comedy writer Pat Proft and it’s a parody film in the style of Airplane! There are sight gags, movie references, and a lot of ridiculous dialogue delivered in deadpan fashion by Leslie Nielsen. Richard Crenna does a decent impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones. There’s a North By Northwest parody that involves a toy airplane. It’s not that there weren’t enough funny moments, it’s just that there weren’t enough of them. Most of the jokes instead felt uninspired, as if Proft just turned on his TV and tossed in a joke about whatever movie he saw being advertised. It feels like the script was written by using parody movie mad libs. One reason why Airplane! holds up so well is because it genuinely loved disaster movies and there was a sense of innocence to even the wildest of the jokes. Wrongfully Accused has some funny moments but there’s no real affection for the movie being poked fun at. The Fugitive feels like almost too easy a target. Leslie Nielsen and Richard Crenna score some laughs but even they sometimes seem to be just going through the motions.
As the old saying goes, dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
Through the Shattered Lens 