CinemaSerf

With barely more than a week to go until "Murtaugh" (Danny Glover) retires, he and his now uniformed (and pony-tailed) partner "Riggs" (Mel Gibson) thwart an armoured car robbery and arrest the culprit. Before he can be rigorously interrogated, though, his brains get splattered against the walls of the interview room and our intrepid duo are charged by "Murphy" (Steve Kazan) to work with the IAD detective "Lorna" (Rene Russo) and track down the perpetrator. It takes them all of five minutes to work out that they have to track down rogue "Lt. Travis" (Stuart Wilson) who is involved in a nefarious gun-running enterprise. Finding him might have got a little easier when realtor "Getz" (Joe Pesci) reckons he has seem him somewhere so that starts them on a trail of the usual pyrotechnics, shoot 'em ups and car chases which, along the way, sees "Murtaugh" enter a depth of despair that only his pal can drag him from as "Travis" has now made everything just a little bit more personal. It is at it's best when it is just Gibson and Glover, the pithy script and some wise-cracking but I found the burgeoning romance between "Riggs" and "Lorna" a bit of a drag and the only highlight from the downright annoying Pesci is on his head. It's a solid story well executed by a director who keeps the pace moving whilst letting the two stars clearly have some high-octane fun. I reckon it is the weakest of the three so far, but it's still watchable escapism.

I have a fairly pathological hatred of dentists, and I can't help but wonder whether screenings of this film on BBC2 in the early 1970s might have been the cause! Indeed, for a few scenes here Norman Wisdom manages to create a sense of peril that easily outdoes anything the horror genre can illicit! Add to that the fact that he works in a butcher's shop and, well, anyway... "Pitkin" is employed by the long-suffering "Mr. Grimsdale" (Edward Chapman) and it's an accident in that shop that sees them both in the hospital of the fastidious "Sir Hector" (Jerry Desmonde) and the altogether nicer nurse "Haskell" (Jeanette Sterke). Needless to say, everything he touches turns to chaos and he finds himself repeatedly chased from the premises, even barred, but he wants to return to help out the traumatised "Lindy" (Lucy Appleby) whose parents were killed in a plane crash and who hasn't uttered a word since! Of course the story is all predictable but as ever, Norman Wisdom made the slapstick comedy at which he excelled look effortless and natural. He easily puts the lutz into clutz as he skates around on the floor of the hospital ward, he clings for grim death to the roof of a speeding ambulance and he even has a go in a marching band playing in a key hitherto undiscovered - and all along he has the redoubtable Chapman to provide just enough of a foil to keep the pace racing along entertainingly for ninety minutes. It's also quite a charming little showcase of life in London in the early sixties with the fashions, the cars and some glass half full attitudes and I did quite enjoy it.

Under the captaincy of the rather pompous "Fred" (James Hayter) a gang of blokes who play darts in the same London boozer decide to take their annual seaside trip to the other side of the Channel this year, and so board the ferry to Boulogne. They are an eclectic bunch who rather stereotypically epitomise the English abroad - beer and steak and kidney pudding, a stiff upper lip and some antics with les mademoiselles that come to centre, rather sentimentally, on the rather dreary "Jim" (Donald Sinden) who has a bored girlfriend at home and "Martine" (Odile Versois). That romance does rather drag the pace a bit but even with his character, the reminiscences of the war are never far away and usually rather delicately expressed through a combination of mischief and Churchillian spirit. Stanley Holloway is on solid form too, usually with a pint in hand, still imagining he was of an age when the young ladies might give his "Charley" a second glance, whilst poor old Bill Owen just wants to do his own impersonation of "Gunga Din" because people rib him about being vertically challenged! It's quite an amiable example of a cinematic entente cordiale, too, as their local hosts prove sporting and hospitable to visitors who might have ten French words between them! This film is not exactly laugh out loud, but more a gently lolling comedic excursion with a cast of professionals taking an oblique look back at war whilst having a fun day au bord de la mer, and I quite enjoyed it.