Chasers (1994)

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It is always easy to judge a comedy. A good one makes you laugh, a bad one does not. This is a bad comedy.

William McNamara plays Navy dude Eddie Devane who is celebrating his impending discharge. He has paid for a Porsche with money he has been stealing from the Navy by selling things on the black market with the help of his neurotic friend Howard (Crispin Glover). In one of those unbelievable plot developments, Eddie is sent to help hard-as-a-rock Rock Reilly (Tom Berenger) retrieve a dangerous prisoner named Tony Johnson and bring him back to base to be flown out to his permanent incarceration in California. The duo must drive through the Carolinas to do this, resulting in madcap Southern stereotypes. The bickering couple get to the Marine prison, but lo-and-behold, he is a she! Boing! She is hot TonI (Erika Eleniak), not TonY! Wah-wah-wah! I hope the trip back goes as smoothly as every other trip Rock has gone on!

Dennis Hopper could not stage a comedic scene to save his life, he had no idea how to direct physical comedy. There's a tampons-in-the-gas-tank scene that is awkward and obvious. A truck stop escape scene has Toni in a bad wig associating with Eddie and Rock, who have no earthly idea who she is. She looks the exact same, she is not Lon Chaney. While Hopper is having technical problems, the real fault here lies with the screenwriters- all the characters are stupid. All of them. The Navy and Marines have some weird inter-military rivalry- my dad was in the Air Force but we never got into fisticuffs with Army brats, the Carolinians are of the "Deliverance" variety, the women are sexual objects, and the men are bitter drunks and wackos. McNamara is baby faced in a part obviously inspired by all of Tom Cruise's roles. Tom Berenger sounds like Nick Nolte in "48HRS," and a change in his character is forced and unbelievable. Eleniak plays Toni as sympathetic, but I kept asking myself why she was set on escaping all the time. Sure, no one wants to serve time in prison, but I thought that reason was secondary to some big climactic confession that never comes about. Hopper populates this nightmare with tons of character actors in bit and cameo parts. Watch for Marilu Henner and actual Oscar nominees try to add a wackiness to the film that is not there. Hopper's own cameo, with a fake nose that makes him look like Karl Malden, is as funny as a rectal exam. "Chasers" can recall "The Last Detail," mirroring the basic plot but nothing more. This film lurches from scene to scene, never giving the audience anyone to like. Even Eleniak's topless scene is anticlimactic, offering us the same thing we (or, at least, I) have seen in the pages of Playboy or online.

A bad comedy contains no laughs, and I literally did not laugh once. Do not pursue "Chasers."

Stats:
(1994) 102 min. (*) out of five stars
-Directed by Dennis Hopper
-Screenplay by Joe Batteer & John Rice, Story by Joe Batteer & John Rice and Dan Gilroy
-Cast: Tom Berenger, Erika Eleniak, William McNamara, Crispin Glover, Matthew Glave, Grand L. Bush, Dean Stockwell, Bitty Schram, Gary Busey, Seymour Cassel, Frederic Forrest, Marilu Henner, Dennis Hopper
(R)