Action cinema of the 1980s and 1990s have remained fixtures of American pop culture into the 2020s and will likely remain well beyond. Through remake, reference, and sheer iconography, the aesthetic trappings of that era are inescapable. And that which is inescapable is ripe for pointing and laughing, and no films accomplished that quite like Hot Shots! and its sequel Hot Shots!: Part Deux.
The Hot Shots! films were written and directed by Jim Abrahams, one third of the legendary Zucker Abrahams Zucker trio who created spoof classics like Airplane! and Top Secret. Both films saw substantial success at the box office and mixed to positive critical reception.
Spoof movies are, tragically, a dying medium. The concept of films that exist to mock, satirize, and point out flaws in other films seems like it should be evergreen, but the genre has struggled for years. Though arguably exemplified by the works of Mel Brooks or Abrahams own Airplane!, modern audiences often see the medium through a much less flattering lens. Modern spoof movies are more along the lines of IMDB's worst-reviewed film ever Disaster Movie or comparable failures like Vampires Suck. The real golden period for the spoof movie was the 80s and the 90s. Some films were great, others were quickly forgotten. Surprisingly, Hot Shots! and Hot Shots!: Part Deux are both.
Hot Shots! is a film about Topper Harley, a cocky fighter pilot who duels a stuck-up rival, falls in love with a complex love interest, and flies combat missions over Iraq. Put simply, it's a parody of the Tom Cruise classic Top Gun. While Top Gun is the main target for mockery, the film takes time out to poke fun at everything from Rocky to Gone With the Wind. The clever trick of Hot Shots! comes in its performances, playing absurd situations completely straight. The entire cast, with very few exceptions, portray their pilots and analysts as sincerely as possible, even as the world follows a surreal sense of cartoonish unreality. The juxtaposition creates something more than just a silly take on a beloved film.
Topper Harley, hero of both films, is portrayed by none other than Charlie Sheen. By 1991, Sheen had already established himself as a dramatic talent in films like Platoon and as a comedic actor in films like Wild Thing. Topper Harley is a hilarious character, always wavering between cocky idiot and ultra-competent superhuman, but with a genuine earnestness that really elevates the performance. Sheen appears alongside spoof mainstay Lloyd Bridges. After his hit role in Airplane!, Bridges plays the most absurd role in the film, Admiral Tug Benson. Where every other performer is playing straight, Bridges comes across like a cartoon character in the flesh.
Hot Shots!: Part Deux came out two years later, after the immense success of the first film, which pulled in 181 million on a 26 million dollar budget. Like the first film, Part Deux centers a spoof of one film while throwing out jokes aimed at a wide variety of contemporaries. The central target is Rambo: First Blood Part II and its sequel Rambo III. This film also enjoyed substantial success upon release, pulling in 133 million on a 25 million dollar budget. Part Deux is slightly less well-received than its predecessor, but it kept the standard of performance with a great new premise.
Topper Harley has retired from the military after the events of the first film, choosing a path of secluded contemplation and Buddhist meditation. Dragged back from retirement to deal with a hostage crisis, Harley is reunited with his estranged love interest and called upon to lead a ragtag squad of soldiers on a mission behind enemy lines. Sheen as Topper as Rambo is a monument to 80s machismo, looking much more muscular in this sequel, dropping one-liners between firing a massive machine gun and wielding a comically large bowie knife. The character would almost fit right into one of a thousand action classics, but his presence in an absurd world makes for great humor.
The Hot Shots! films use just about every trick in the spoof movie master playbook. Harley is almost always surrounded by idiots, letting him play the role of the last sane man, like Leslie Nielsen's role in Airplane!, but he also often makes a fool of himself. This creates a character that can pull off any joke, while still remaining identifiable and likable. The world around Harley exaggerates everything, shell casings fired from a machine gun bury the shooter, a romantic scene leaves characters literally steaming, sadness is personified with a thundercloud following the tragic figure. The films also break the fourth wall with abandon, a scene in Part Deux drops a literal "Body Count" graphic on the screen, describing the film's violence in relation to other films. Reframing characters to poke fun, heightening the world they live in to absurdity, and winking to the audience are the tentpoles of spoof cinema, and Hot Shots! has them in droves.
The films, and the genre in general, may not hold the conversation today, but both Hot Shots! films masterfully satirize classic action cinema. Filmmakers of the modern-day should learn from the example of Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux.