Airplane!

 3/4

Starring: Robert Hayes, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Stack, Lorna Patterson

Rated PG (for Brief Nudity and Comic Drug Content)

"Airplane!" needs no introduction.  In fact, it's not a movie that a critic can write about very easily.  Explaining why a movie like "Mass" works and what it does is significantly less difficult than enduring the film.  With a ZAZ film, the opposite is true.  What can I write about?  It's a spoof movie that ruthlessly parodies disaster movies in every way the filmmakers can think of.  It's rude, gross, stupid, and cheesy.  But that's why it works.  And also because there is no one on screen with an ounce of shame.

The movie is a checklist of cliches from disaster movies.  The traumatized hero (Ted Stryker, played by Robert Hayes), his ex-girlfriend (Elaine Dickinson, played by Julie Hagerty), his old mentor with whom he has an as to grind (Rex Kramer, played by Robert Hayes), the colorful supporting cast, the escalating disaster.  And so on.  They're old hat, and ZAZ know it.  Rather than trying to breathe life into them, the filmmakers use them as target practice, skewering them without mercy.  For example, the trouble starts when the passengers eat bad fish.  Or when the film flashes back to a romantic clinch between the two lovebirds in the surf (a la "From Here to Eternity"), they get soaked and covered in seaweed.

The movie is like that.  It's impossible to take seriously on any level, and that's exactly what ZAZ had in mind.  They throw everything at the screen and never miss a chance to stick the knife in and twist it.  Even the dialogue is tongue-in-cheek (you can practically picture it being said in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie).  No joke is too lame, no gag is too obvious and no cliche emerges unscathed.

Actually, the film is more clever and daring than it initially appears to be.  While "Airplane!" is very silly and very dumb, it is the willingness to be those things that makes it so funny.  We expect comedies to shock and surprise us, to assault us with zingers we didn't see coming.  "Airplane!" doesn't bother to try.  It  uses the obvious jokes, the groaners, the lame one-liners.  By being so willingly silly, it makes the film that much funnier.  Of course, some of the gags are smart (such as the increasingly acrimonious loudspeakers at the airport).

Acting is key to a movie like this, but its an unsung quality.  Robert Hayes plays his part straight out of a soap opera, which works because he lets us know that he's in on the joke.  It makes his dialogue seem more ripe and purple.  Veteran actors Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves and Robert Stack don't push their performances.  They know that by playing it absolutely straight, they'll be much funnier.  And Lloyd Bridges has fun going off the wall.

There is a problem that most movies like this run into: running out of steam.  The first half of the movie is a riot.  But the longer it goes on, the more the jokes wear thin.  Just like when your friend surprises you with a really lame joke that makes you laugh because it is so lame, it's not as funny the second time he does it.  It's an issue that "Airplane!" runs into, principally because it actually tries to tell a story.  The movie is never serious, but it loses a bit of self-awareness.

Make no mistake, however.  This is a funny movie.  If you don't laugh at all, you left your sense of humor at the door.