The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 173 Days to go: 121
Movie #265: Spies Like Us
Laughter is the best medicine, they say,so how better to deal with the exhaustively long-running Cold War than to make a goofy comedy about it featuring a couple of delightful SNL alums?
“Doctor.”
“Doctor.”
“Doctor?”
“Doctor!”
I’m not saying Spies Like Us is on par with Dr. Strangelove or anything — or even other silly ’80s comedies, really — but I do like it quite a bit. I like the skewering of government officials of all types and positions. I like the subtle but pointed nod to Ronald Reagan’s career in goofy movies of his own, back in the day. I like the absurd levels of secrecy and security. I like the utter and total incompetence of the military as a general rule. I like how Dan Aykroyd routintely pimps out his wife to be the hot chick object of affection for one of his costars (or sometimes, even himself — see Exit to Eden). I like that schlubby goofball Dan Aykroyd is married to internationally recognized gorgeous person Donna Dixon. I like the ridiculous fur coats and hats they wear once they cross into Russia.
Dan Aykroyd is Austin Millbarge, a code breaker and languages expert working in the bowels of the Pentagon and hoping to better himself by taking the Foreign Service Board exam and get some sort of swanky overseas embassy job. Chevy Chase is Emmett Fitz-Hume, a smarmy, lazy, entitled diplomacy worker at the State Department who expects to sleep his way past the exam, or at least have his family legacy get him in. They come together during exam time, when Fitz-Hume railroads Millbarge into helping him cheat on the test in a most spectacular way. (Bonus! Frank Oz is the test administrator who is having none of their shit.) These shenanigans bring them to the attention of nefarious military dudes, who are looking for a couple of schmucks to send up as decoy spies into Pakistan and Russia so the real spies will stop getting killed. They go through a crazy mock-up of military training over the course of a day, and get dropped into the desert with a nebulous mission. Cue a Bob Hope cameo, a botched appendectomy, Donna Dixon as real spy Karen Boyer, scary Russian spies, and some hard-partying Russian missile guards, and you have one heck of a funny little flick.
Also, the Star Wars Defense plan doesn’t work, but it does blow up an MTV satellite, so it’s not all bad.
Viable Option 