Tag Archives: Lance Kinsey

Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989, directed by Peter Bonerz)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The sixth Police Academy film opens with another crime wave.  Considering that the Police Academy Class of 1984 was supposedly the best to ever graduate, they don’t seem to have done much to clean up the city.  This time, a series of robberies are being committed in the Wilson Heights neighborhood.  Since Captain Harris (G.W. Bailey) and Lt. Proctor (Lance Kinsey) don’t seem to be capable of upholding the law in their precinct, the Mayor (Kenneth Mars) orders Harris to work with Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) and the usual gang of Police Academy graduates.

Carey Mahoney is still missing in action but Nick Lassard (Matt McCoy) has transferred up from Miami and has taken Mahoney’s place as the resident smartass.  Also returning are Sound Effects Man (Michael Winslow), Hightower (Bubba Smith), Hooks (Marion Ramsey), Callahan (Leslie Easterbrook), Tackleberry (David Graf), and, after having been absent for the previous two films, Sgt. Fackler (Bruce Mahler)!

I cannot believe I’m saying this but Police Academy 6 turned out to be better than I remembered.  It’s just as stupid as all of the other Police Academy films but everyone seems to be having a good time and Matt McCoy no longer feels out of place as Mahoney’s replacement.  Bruce Mahler’s return as Fackler also means a return to the physical comedy that he excelled at in the first two films and the total incompetence of Harris and Proctor is handled better here than it was in the previous few films.  A welcome addition to the cast is Gerrit Graham, as the childish head of the robbers.  (Whereas the previous few films at least tried to pretend like the criminals were a potentially serious threat, City Under Siege presents them as being as clownish as everyone else in the film.  It’s a better approach because it’s not as if anyone watches a Police Academy film expecting to see something like The French Connection or Fort Apache, The Bronx.)  Police Academy 6 is a stupid, stupid movie and the jokes are as juvenile as ever but, along with Part 3, it’s still one of the better sequels.

Police Academy 6 was the first Police Academy film to not be a box office hit.  It would be followed by one final sequel, Mission to Moscow, which I’ll take a look at on Saturday.

Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988, directed by Alan Myerson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Police Academy 5 starts as so many Police Academy films have started.  Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) is getting progressively more loopy and Captain Harris (G.W. Bailey) is plotting to take over the Academy.  This time, Harris thinks that he has come up with the perfect plan when he discovers that Lassard has reached the mandatory retirement age.

With retirement looming, Lassard attends one final law enforcement convention in Miami.  At the convention, Lassard is to be honored as “Police Officer of the Decade” because it was apparently a very slow decade.  Lassard decides to bring along his favorite academy graduates so that they can celebrate with him and meet his nephew, Sgt. Nick Lassard (Matt McCoy, who you may recognize as Seinfeld’s Lloyd Braun or maybe as the spokesman for Hartford Insurance).   The commandant invites Sound Effects Guy (Michael Winslow), Tackleberry (David Graf), Hightower (Bubba Smith), Hooks (Marion Ramsey), Callhan (Leslie Easterbrook), and House (Tab Thacker).  Notice who isn’t there?  This was the first Police Academy film without Steve Guttenberg’s Carey Mahoney and Commandant Lassard celebrating his career without inviting his most loyal graduate doesn’t seem right.

Once what is left of the old gang arrives in Miami, they get caught up in the usual Police Academy shenanigans.  Rene Auberjonois plays a jewel thief who accidentally switches bags with the Commandant and who has 24 hours to retrieve the stolen diamonds.  It’s Florida so there are women in bikinis and an Everglades boat chase.  Harris gets humiliated in every way possible.  The jokes are even more juvenile than usual.  Nick Lassard uses sunscreen to permanently label Harris as being a “dork” so everyone on the beach calls Harris a “dork.”  That’s as sophisticated as things get.

Unfortunately, there’s a Steve Guttenberg-shaped hole at the center of Police Academy 5 and not even as formidable a thespian as Matt McCoy can fill it.  Even though Guttenberg always seemed like he was miscast as both a cop and a former juvenile delinquent, Police Academy 5 shows how important he really was to the franchise.  Mahoney was the closest thing that the Police Academy films had to a fully developed character and, without him around, it’s even more obvious how thinly drawn all of the other characters were.  (Guttenberg was filming Three Man And A Baby while Police Academy 5 was in production though, in an A.V. Club interview a few years ago, Guttenberg said the real reason he wasn’t invited to Miami Beach was because the producers couldn’t afford to pay his salary.  “You’ve got to get paid!” Guttenberg explained.)

I will, however, give Police Academy 5 some credit.  Rene Auberjonois does what he can with his bumbling jewel thief and the scene where Tackleberry pulls a gun on a shark made me laugh.  Otherwise, Police Academy 5 is no Police Academy 3.

Tomorrow, it’s time for … you guessed it! …. Police Academy 6!

Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987, directed by Jim Drake)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Long before the end credits of 22 Jump Street imagined Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum going to culinary school, the flight academy, and into outer space, the Police Academy films bravely tested just how far one already thin premise could already be stretched.

In Police Academy 4, Commandant Eric Lassard (George Gaynes) comes up with another plan to make the city safer.  (Since Lassard has been coming up with plans for three years without any success, it may be time to let the old man retire peacefully.)  This time, he wants to institute Citizens on Patrol, which would mean training citizens to act like cops.  It sounds like the type of terrible idea that could get a city sued into bankruptcy but considering that this is a city where a human sound effects machine and the former head of the 16 precinct’s biggest gang can become decorated police officers, I guess it’s as good an idea as any.

As usual, Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg) and the gang are ready to help Lassard.  Bruce Mahler’s Fackler is no longer a part of the ensemble but Bubba Smith, Bobcat Goldthwait, Michael Winslow, David Graf, Tim Kazurinsky, Marion Ramsey, and Brian Toschi are all back.  Also returning, after skipping out on the first two sequels, is Capt. Harris (G.W. Bailey).  Harris wants to see Lassard fail so that he can take over the police academy.  It’s the same thing as the first three films.  As in previous Police Academy films, there’s a visit to the Blue Oyster leather bar and a last minute crime wave to give the Citizens on Patrol a chance to prove they belong in the program.  The Citizens on Patrol include Billie Bird, Brian Backer, David Spade, wrestler Tab Thacker, and Corrine Bohrer as a love interest for Bobcat Goldthwait.  Sharon Stone also makes an appearance, playing a journalist and improbably falling for Steve Guttenberg.  Watching the film, it is obvious that the idea was that, in future Police Academy films, the Citizens on Patrol could replace any of the regular cast members who wanted too much money to return.  As a result, almost every veteran of the cast has a doppelganger in the Citizens on Patrol.  Brian Backer could replace Steve Guttenberg.  Tab Thacker is there to put Bubba Smith on notice that no one is irreplaceable.  Is Bobcat Goldthwait being difficult?  Just remind him that David Spade can play a crazy eccentric too.

Police Academy 4 is the most crowded of the Police Academy films and, even by the franchise’s undemanding standards, most of the jokes fall flat.  Jim Drake took over as director after the director of the previous two films, Jerry Paris, died of a brain tumor and Drake struggles to balance low comedy with police action.  Guttenberg and company don’t have the same energy in this installment as they had in the previous three and the new cast members all feel as if they’re out place sharing scenes with the veterans, like a group of underclassmen who have been invited on the senior trip.

This would be the final Police Academy film for Steve Guttenberg.  Would the franchise be able to survive without him?  Check here tomorrow to find out with my review of Police Academy 5!

Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986, directed by Jerry Paris)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Police Academy 3 opens with a state in the middle of a fiscal crisis.  Money has to be saved somewhere and the governor (Ed Nelson) has decided that it’s not necessary for the state to have two police academies.  I am not sure why the governor would be the one to make that determination since the previous two Police Academy films established that the academies are run by the city but I guess I should remember that I’m watching a Police Academy film and not ask too many questions.

Which academy is going to be closed down?  Will it be the academy run by Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) or the one run by Commandant Mauser (Art Metrano, returning from the second film)?  Mauser is willing to use any dirty, under-handed trick to keep his academy open.  Meanwhile, Lassard has his most recent graduating class returning to instruct his latest batch of recruits.  Can Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg) and Michael Winslow’s human sound effects machine save the academy?

When I watched Police Academy 3 this weekend, I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t as bad as I remembered.  Maybe it’s because I watched it immediately after the first two films and my senses were dulled but Police Academy 3 turned out to be an amiable and enjoyably stupid comedy. It helped that two of the new recruits were played by Tim Kazurinsky and Bobcat Goldthwait.  Returning to the roles that they first played in the second movie, Kazurinsky and Goldthwait make for a good comedic team.  As for the rest of the Police Academy regulars, they all do their usual comedy bits like pros and without any fuss.  It’s predictable and sometimes, funny.

Police Academy 3 was the first Police Academy film to have a PG-rating and, as a result, the jokes were still as juvenile and crude as the first two movies but, at the same time, Police Academy 3 seems to have made peace with the fact that it’s target audience was a bunch of adolescent boys dropped off at the theater by their mothers.  Mauser is still regularly humiliated but no one gets a blow job while standing in front of a podium.  This is a Police Academy for the entire family, assuming that your family is easily amused and not too demanding.

Police Academy 3 is a dumb movie and the recurring joke about policemen accidentally entering the Blue Oyster Bar is even less funny the third time that it’s used.  There’s also a Japanese recruit who only seems to be included because, back in the 80s, American films were obsessed with making fun of Japan.  Despite all that, Police Academy 3 is still not as bad as the usual Police Academy sequel.

But what about Police Academy 4?  Check in tomorrow to find out if it’s also better than I initially remembered.

(It’s not.)

Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985, directed by Jerry Paris)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In an unnamed city that is probably meant to be Los Angeles but which looks like Toronto, a criminal gang known as the Scullions have taken over the 16th precinct.  Led by the loud, marble-mouthed Zed (Bobcat Goldthwait), the Scullions are terrorizing the citizens and harassing one shop owner, Carl Sweetchuck (Tim Kazurinsky), in particular.  The captain of the 16th precinct, Pete Lassard (Howard Hesseman), calls his brother, Eric Lassard (George Gaynes), and asks for the best cadets to have recently graduated from the police academy.

Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg) and a few other of the cadets from the first Police Academy movie end up in the 16th.  Tackleberry (David Graf) is there and so is accident-prone Douglas Fackler (Bruce Mahler).  Bubba Smith is back as Hightower and so is Michael Winslow, the human sound effects machine.  They’re determined to help Lassard’s brother but it’s not going to be easy because they have to work with Lt. Mauser (Art Metrano) who is basically a dick who wants to be captain.  Mauser is exactly like Harris from the first film, except his name is Mauser and, instead of getting his head stuck up a horse’s ass, he gets his hands super-glued to his head.

Police Academy 2 is less raunchy than the first film but still not quite as family friendly as the films that would follow.  There’s still one f-bomb dropped and a few adult jokes, as if the film wasn’t fully ready to admit that it was destined to become associated with juvenile viewers who would laugh at almost anything involving a bodily function.  There is one funny moment where Steve Guttenberg goes undercover to join Zed’s gang, mostly because he’s Steve Guttenberg and he’s even less believable as a gang member than he was as a cop.  The closest thing that movie has to a highlight is Bobcat Goldthwait’s manic turn as Zed and Tim Kazurinsky’s desperation as he watches his store get repeatedly destroyed.  Tackleberry also gets an amusing romantic subplot, where he meets a police woman (Colleen Camp) who loves guns almost as much he does.  Unfortunately, Tackleberry’s romance gets pushed to the side by all of the gang activity.

Police Academy 2 is stupid but, depending on how much tolerance you have for Bobcat Goldthwait, sometimes funny.  It’s not as “good” as the first film but it’s still better than most of what would follow.  Speaking of which, tomorrow, I will be reviewing the first Police Academy film to get a PG-rating, Police Academy 3: Back in Training.