Police Academy 3: Back in Training

Police Academy 3: Back in Training; comedy, USA, 1986; D: Jerry Paris, S: Tim Kazurinsky, Bobcat Goldthwait, Steve Guttenberg, Art Metrano, Bubba Smith, Michael Winslow, Lance Kinsey, George Gaynes, Leslie Esterbrook, Marion Ramsey

The city plans to close one of the two Police Academies due to budget constraints, so an evaluation committee is appointed to check those two. Commandant Mauser and his assistant Proctor plan to sabotage their rival Academy led by Commandant Lassard through two saboteurs. At the same time, Mahoney, Hightower, Tackleberry, Callahan and the others train the new recruits, among them two unlikely partners, Zed and Sweetchuck. Despite the fact that the committee at first ranks them low, they redeem themselves when they manage to save the governor and other hostages from robbers on a yacht, thus winning the competition.

As the critics incisively observed, each subsequent "Police Academy" sequel turned out weaker than the previous film, and the trend continued with this instalment - while part 2 was at least semi-good, part 3 is entirely average, a mild comedy that seems as if the writer saved his better jokes for some other film, yet at least two actors managed to deliver even better performances than in the previous film, Tim Kazurinsky's Sweetchuck and Bobcat Goldthwait's Zed, who are sympathetic as unlikely new police recruits. Roughly patched from patterns of the previous two films, clumsily stumbling over the concept of too many new characters which dilute the story and for the first time push Guttenberg's character Mahoney into the background, "Police Academy 3" is a sparse, though still easily watchable 'guilty pleasure' that returned one essential character to the series, Leslie Easterbrook's Callahan, whereas a few funny jokes can be found here and there, like when Sweetchuck is hiding behind a tree and raises his gun high in order to seem taller than he is in front of a burglar or when the robbers storm a yacht and a lady hides her jewellery under her husband's wig.

Grade:+