Touted as the first comedy directed by actor Dennis Hopper, "Chasers" proves to be a pretty silly, low-humor take on "The Last Detail," with a gender twist.
"The Last Detail" was a 1972 comedy-drama about two tough Navy Shore Patrolmen (one of them played by Jack Nicholson) who were assigned to transport a young, naive rube (Randy Quaid) to the brig. Naturally, they had a series of unexpected adventures along the way.
"Chasers" has a tough Navy Shore Patrolman (Tom Berenger, at his most crusty) finding he has a new one-day partner (William McNamara, attempting a cocky Tom Cruise imitation). In fact, it's his last day in the service.
Their assignment is to transport a prisoner to the brig, and, naturally, they encounter a series of unexpected adventures along the way.
The real twist here, however, is the prisoner, who turns out to be a sexy young woman (Erika Eleniak, the stripper in "Under Siege" and Elly May in "The Beverly Hillbillies").
You can guess the rest.
Berenger and McNamara pick up Eleniak at a Marine post in the South and hit the road, whereupon Eleniak uses her feminine wiles to escape — several times. But eventually, she and McNamara fall in love, and gruff ol' Berenger begins to soften.
Meanwhile, there is an ironic conflict at work, as Eleniak gains audience sympathy as a victim of the system and McNamara is shown to be a real con artist, stowing away thousands of dollars from the illegal sale of Navy surplus supplies. He's saving the money to buy a Porsche when he's dis-charged.
There is also an array of eccentric characters on the scene, played by Hopper's friends — Crispin Glover as an eccentric (what else?) associate of McNamara's, Dean Stockwell as the car dealer who has McNamara's Porsche, Gary Busey as a Navy-hating Marine, Seymour Cassel as McNamara's bombastic commanding officer, Frederic Forrest as a redneck tow-truck driver and Marilu Henner as a flirtatious waitress. Oh, yes, and Hopper also has a cameo, as a bizarre traveling salesman, complete with an oversize fake nose.
The script, by Dan Gilroy ("Freejack"), and Joe Batteer and John Rice (the upcoming "Blown Away"), is derivative and illogical, with more than its share of dumb comic plotting.
Director Hopper tries desperately — and that's the word — to spice things up with big action slapstick sequences. But the sight of a van driving up the side of a volcano at a miniature golf course or McNamara running naked down the road are not inherently funny bits of business. Some inventive timing or camera work would certainly help.
In the end, "Chasers" actually seems to owe more to "Smokey and the Bandit" than "The Last Detail," and maybe that's the problem here. With characters like these, a bit of intelligent satire instead of same old dopey slapstick might have made the difference.
"Chasers" is rated R for violence, profanity, vulgarity, sex and nudity.