Hot Stuff

This film plays as if it was originally written with Burt Reynolds as the star, but he couldn't/wouldn't do it.

It features pretty much the Usual Reynolds-Film Suspects -- Jerry Reed, Alfie Wise, Pat McCormick and others, and has exactly that air of slightly sardonic, semi-detached humour that Burt's raised eyebrow and patented cackle/chuckle convey so well (to the extent that his laugh was used as part of an animated pre-credits studio logo sequence for "Smokey & the Bandit").

That said, the cast make an excellent ensemble, play well off each other, and deliver the goods quite satisfactorily.

Quite an agreeable way to fill in an otherwise wasted hour and a half or so; if you're not expecting Great Drama, i don't think this film will fail to entertain.

(Watch for the then-Mayors of Miami and Miami Beach in Very Funny cameos. I won't tell you where -- if you don't spot them, check the end credits.)

Pleshette, deluise, and a couple other coppers come up with a unique way to catch crooks. Instead of chasing after them, they open a down low pawn shop, and record the thugs fencing stolen goods! Which works great, until the local mafia don tries to muscle in. It's quite good! Pretty fast paced. Nothing too complicated. It's all light and fun. Directed by deluise himself. One of only two he directed.and if you check the cast list, deluise managed to get a whole lot of his family on the payroll. This was just after pleshette had finished with bob newhart.

Deluise had already done blazing saddles and a bunch of his goofy 1970s film.

Dom Deluise's feature directorial debut was a pretty big disappointment for me when this movie first came out. (I saw it at the Bellerose Theater, Bellerose, NY.) Dom Deluise and Jerry Reed were super likeable back then. Overall, the movie is pretty much a dud. It's one okay "funny" scene of people trying to fence stolen property after another. None of them standout. Suzanne Pleshette is quite dreamy in this movie but she's given nothing to do. "Hot Stuff" is not the worst movie ever but compared to the other comedies that were coming out at the time, it's pretty tame. Maybe a more seasoned director could have pulled this one off.

I saw this with the neighbors kids in the summer of 79 at the theatre, and thought what an odd film it was. Essentially Dom Deluise and Jerry Reed reprise their Smokey and the Bandit chemistry to organize an urban fence for a police sting.

As a kid I simply didn't understand too much of the plot, but thought it was entertaining in a sort of silly-adults acting silly sort of way. It's also got a kind of happy yet "justice is served" ending for what it's worth, making all feel happy at the end.

Kind of an odd film that deals with law enforcement, stolen goods and the "human" side of crime (if you can call it that). I'm not sure it's a film I'd see again, but I didn't mind seeing it the first time, and I think I caught it a couple more times on HBO a couple years later.

Give it a shot.

Miami police detectives Ernie Fortunato (Dom DeLuise) and Doug von Horne (Jerry Reed) are partners working stolen goods in a squad run by Captain John Geiberger (Ossie Davis). Sergeant Louise Webster (Suzanne Pleshette) has been brought in to fix their lack of convictions. Doug has the idea to take over a rundown pawn shop to film all the thieves fencing their stolen goods.

This is a mildly humorous comedy directed by Dom DeLuise. It mostly relies on the loveable characters in the squad doing funny things. Quite frankly, it relies on the performers themselves more than anything else or the writing.