Armed and Dangerous

What a delightful treat. I wanted to check out some vintage John Candy flicks and came across this hidden gem. It was funny, smart, and had some action too.

John Candy plays Officer Frank Dooley. He loses his job as a cop after he is unfairly convicted of boosting televisions. He takes a job as a security guard but his nose for sniffing out crimes hasn't diminished.

Norman Kane (Eugene Levy) is a defunct lawyer and also works for the same security agency. The two of them partner up to investigate their security company and the security guard union. It's all kinds of hilarity as they close in on the truth of what's going on between the union, the security company, and a couple of corrupt cops.

John Candy plays a security guard who is truly "armed and dangerous." I don't remember much about the first four-fifths of the movie. Something about John Candy dressing in drag in a porn shop. I think he caught a big fish, too. Anyway, bumbling John Candy is stuck in a traffic jam, and he needs to be at a certain place at a certain time, and people's lives are at stake, and he asks a trucker to take him there. What should the driver do: finish his run, or cause thousands of dollars of damage to possibly save lives? It's a classic moral dilemma. Well, wheels are turnin'. He even manages to upshift. They couldn't have cast a better truck for the part than the Ford CL9000, the cab bobbing up and down. This movie leaves you with the question: "If a tankerload of rocket propellant exploded, would the force go straight up?"

This was a nice surprise. I figured it would be stupid and not all that funny. Wrong. It WAS funny. Yes, it's a harmless "no-brainer" type of movie but it was fun and had likable lead characters, people you could easily root for to make good. In this, it was a pair of security guards: "Frank Dooley" (John Candy) and "Norman Kane" (Eugene Levy).

Every comedy has its stupid moments, this included, but the good outweighs the stupid. What also makes this above-average is that it is not just a comedy. There is action and suspense in here and the combination works. Believe me, this film is not all laughs.

I watch this and makes me sad that Candy is no longer with us. He was a great entertainer.

In a way, maybe it does weaken "Armed and Dangerous" just a little to have so much high action, but how can you not like a John Candy/Eugene Levy movie? In this case, they play security guards who discover all sorts of corruption. But mostly, it's an excuse to be silly. Low humor, sure, but still likable (especially the clothing-switching scene; I bet that they liked filming that!).

Anyway, it's one of many movies that shows what we lost when John Candy died. In other words, it's armed and dangerously funny. Also starring Robert Loggia (happy birthday, Robert!), Kenneth McMillan and Meg Ryan.

A 50 caliber...

This is stupid comedy at its best. John Candy and Eugene Levy are in top form in this movie. Directed by Mark L. Lester (Class of 1984 and 1999, Commando) shows a great fun of Comedy and Action. Candy and Levy are great together, the supporting cast are: Robert Loggia, Kenneth McMillian, Meg Ryan, Jonathan Banks, Brion James and Steve Ralisback (In a Cameo). John Candy and Eugene Levy have a great chemistry in this film. The addition of the sweet, innocent character played by Meg Ryan a great plus. Even though the story and filming is not the greatest, their characters in this film play off each other very well to provide for some hilarious, outlandish situations and a whole slew of laughs.

This movie is a classic 80's comedy if you ask me, with a nice bit of action in it too and a good story. This movie has loads of memorable scenes such as this with easily likable characters, well defined good and bad guys and an easy to follow plot. It's not easy to create good character gags over a short space of time, but this film manages to do it and avoids a lot of the traps that other 80's comedies did by relying on visual and verbal gags alone.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.