Loaded Weapon 1

Loaded Weapon I; parody, USA, 1993, D: Gene Quintano, S: Emilio Estevez, Samuel L. Jackson, Kathy Ireland, Tim Curry, William Shatner, Jon Lovitz, Frank McRae, Whoopi Goldberg, Denis Leary, F. Murray Abraham  

L. A. Sergeants Colt and Luger get a new case of investigating the murder of Billie York, who hid a secret microfilm that can disguise cocaine as ordinary cookies. Colt starts an affair with Miss Destiny, who knows the villain searching for the microfilm, General Mortars. After a lot of misadventures, Luger shoots Mortars in a warehouse and stops his drug smuggling operation.  

“Loaded Weapon 1” (despite its sly title, it never had a sequel) is one of those rare pure parody films from the 90s, spoofs so unabashedly ridiculous and over-the-top that they are almost tantamount to a live-action cartoon, but it once again proves that only the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker trio had the capacity to truly make that specific sub-genre reach a greater level. “Loaded Weapon 1” is a light, carefree, dumb comedy, yet it works only to a certain extent: some jokes succeed, others fail. And for a parody to work completely, their rate of success should be at least 80%, with some outstandingly funny moments. This film is below that line, with only moderately amusing jokes, but it is nonetheless fun watching Emilio Estevez and Samuel L. Jackson as a team that spoofs “Lethal Weapon”. In one good joke, their characters Colt and Luger are driving in their car, when all of a sudden one of them says that “they are being followed”—cut to the next scene of two criminals sitting in the back seat behind them, in the same car. Another good moment has the villain (William Shatner) enter the mansion of a guy (Denis Leary), and starts shooting—cut to a scene of even a man on TV covering his face and ducking for cover. When Luger asks a clerk about York, the clerk asks for a photo of her, so Luger reaches for his jacket and takes out a T-shirt with York’s face on it, leading to an insane exchange (“Is that her?” - “No, that’s the photo”). Other jokes fare less: for instance, the “Silence of the Lambs” sequence doesn’t work. Just referencing a scene from a classic movie is not a joke on itself. Bruce Willis makes a cameo as a guy whose trailer was accidentally shot at by a helicopter, but this is also just bland. The beautiful Kathy Ireland is effervescent as Miss Destiny, and she has chemistry with Estevez. Overall, a good zany fun, yet the cinema world would later on move to more grounded comedies, anchored in reality.  

Grade:++