The three Bantam Brothers (Walker Boone, Tony DeSantis, and Dave Mucci) have just gotten out of prison and they’ve all already stolen several pounds of explosives.  Pretending to be international terrorists, they try to blackmail banker Adam Beardsley (John Vernon) into paying them off.  Deputy Police Commissioner Ray Melton (Robert Vaughn) wants to go by the book but his superior, Thad Evans (Leslie Nielsen), realizes that this case is going to require a cop who is willing to break all the rules.  It’s time to call in Jack Calhoun (Bruce Fairbairn).

When this movie started, I assumed that it was a comedy.  The title sounded like a double entendre and Leslie Nielsen’s name was right there in the opening credits.  The opening heist scene also felt like a comedy, up until the Bantam brothers started shooting people.  That was when I realized that this movie was supposed to be a drama.  Why would you cast a post-Airplane! Leslie Nielsen in a serious cop film?  This film did come out before The Naked Gun but it was still after Nielsen sent up every cop show ever made with the original Police Squad television series.  .And then, on top of Nielsen, the film gives us Robert Vaughn and a very grumpy John Vernon.  All it needed was OJ Simpson as Calhoun’s partner.

Even though the movie was a drama, it still felt like a comedy.  Bruce Fairbairn wasn’t much of a cop but luckily, the three Bantam brothers weren’t that much of a group of criminals.  Jack Calhoun had a girlfriend (Kerrie Keane) who constantly reminded him that he could have been having sex with her if he wasn’t constantly searching for the Bantam brothers.  “I can’t be in two places at once,” Calhoun said with a sigh.  I’m still not convinced this wasn’t a comedy.

Nightstick was originally made for Canadian television.  When it first aired, it was called Calhoun.  The name was changed to Nightstick for the video release, even though no one in the movie uses a nightstick.  Calhoun uses a gun and, at one point, a binder but he doesn’t carry a nightstick.  Maybe his character should have been named Jack Nightstick to make the title work.

Did I hallucinate this movie?  I’m pretty sure it was a comedy.