After the intriguing sobriety of Into the Night, John Landis returned to sloppy facetiousness for this 1985 secret agent spoof starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. Chase repeats his standard Ivy League asshole routine, while Aykroyd, continuing a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to find a screen persona for himself, dabbles in some untoward pathos as a nerdish technical whiz. Landis never bothers to account for the friendship that springs up spontaneously between these two antipathetic types, but then he never bothers to account for anything in this loose progression of recycled Abbott and Costello riffs and fumbled Strangelovean satire. With Donna Dixon, Steve Forrest, Bruce Davison, Bernie Casey, and (as in Night) cameo appearances by other directors. 109 min.
