HOT SHOTS! took the Airplane! approach to Top Gun, firing an ack-ack barrage of jokes at the cliches of macho military movies and throwing extra rounds at a batch of alternate targets for good measure. There are misfires, and not every shot hits the target, but many do, enough that made it the 18th most-seen movie of 1991. At the end of the final credit scroll: “IF YOU HAD LEFT THIS THEATRE WHEN THESE CREDITS BEGAN, YOU’D BE HOME NOW.”

Recalled to service, hotshot Navy pilot ‘Topper Harley’ (Charlie Sheen) trains for ‘Operation Sleepy Weasel’, finds passion with psychiatrist ‘Ramada Thompson’ (Valeria Golino) and duels over ruling the dude coop with arrogant ‘Kent Gregory’ (Cary Elwes).

TOPPER: “That’s an interesting perfume.”   RAMADA: “It’s Vicks. I have a cold.”

Directed by Jim Abrahams (The Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane!, Top Secret!), who co-wrote with Pat Proft (Bachelor Party, The Naked Gun). Cost to the American taxpayer: $26,000,000. Earned, on behalf of National Security, Ensuring Democracy and Stopping The Next Hitler: $69,468,000 domestic and $111,629,000 more internationally. Because the Military Comedy Complex budget needed to be upgraded for new threats, it was pursued two years later by Hot Shots! Part Deux.

“American planes will always be superior as long as there are wonderful men like you in the cockpit. And German parts.”

84 minutes, enough to accomplish the mission.With Lloyd Bridges, Kevin Dunn, Jon Cryer, William O’Leary (as ‘Dead Meat’), Kristy Swanson (as ‘Kowalski’, because every military movie has a Kowalski), Bill Irwin, Ryan Stiles, Bruce A. Young (as ‘Red Herring’), Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (sorry, you just can’t make him funny), Rino Thunder (as ‘Owatonna, The Old One’), Jerry Haleva (as Saddam Hussein), Gene Greytak (as Pope John Paul II), Charles Barkley. Plus there’s a good version of “Dream Lover” sung by Dion.

KENT: “Something’s changed. It’s not another woman, is it? I just couldn’t compete with that.”   RAMADA: “No, of course you couldn’t.”