Hot Shots!

Hot Shots! (1991) is a parody of Top Gun. A pilot living in his father's shadow is recalled to the service, prepares for a secret mission, and every scene the film is imitating collapses along the way. Jim Abrahams directed. He was one of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team behind Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and the method is identical: several jokes in every frame, absurdity played straight, and wordplay. Its targets are not limited to Top Gun. Scenes from Dances with Wolves, 9½ Weeks, Gone with the Wind and Superman are reconstructed directly, the best known being the food sequence in the kitchen. Charlie Sheen leads. The mirror scene from Apocalypse Now, in which his father Martin Sheen starred, is also parodied here, with Charlie Sheen performing it himself. It became one of the highest grossing comedies of its moment and produced a sequel, Hot Shots! Part Deux, in 1993. It runs 85 minutes. Good for: parody, nineties comedy, and anyone who likes Airplane! Less good for: if you do not know the films being parodied, half the jokes go past you. The sexual humour belongs to its period. The joke rate is high but the hit rate is not as high as Airplane!