Stakeout (1987)

If you haven't seen this movie yet, you really should. It's a film that has basically every element a film should have. Comedy, romance and action. It's neither a guy or chick flick, but rather suitable for everyone. The parts that have action, are not cheesy at all, and are actually pretty good. The scenes that are funny, are really well-written and are very humorous. And, finally the love scenes are modest, but still adult enough.

Richard Dryefus and Emilio Esteves, are partners for the Seattle P.D. When the F.B.I puts them on a special assignment, staking out the home of the ex-girlfriend to an escaped convict, they become involved more in her, then they do in the actual case. Adin Quinn stars as the escaped convict, and does an excellent job making you hate him. Richard Dreyfus is hilarious and I suspect, that's why they made a sequel to this film.

I recommend this film to anyone over thirteen, and highly recommend it to adults. It's funny and well presented on screen.

Fmovies: I absolutely love this movie and watch it at least once a month. It is the perfect blend of comedy and drama and all of the lead characters were well suited for their roles.

The only bit that made me uncomfortable was the fact that Chris not only illegally entered Maria's apartment but stuck around to watch her naked in the shower. That wasn't even remotely funny, it was frightening. This young woman thinks she is alone in her home and never knows that there is a policeman/pervert watching her shower. I couldn't help but imagine what could have happened if she glanced at the doorway and saw a strange man watching her. It makes us uncomfortable because nobody likes to be spied on and we have the illusion of safety and privacy in our homes. I think Chris had an unfair advantage over Maria and that is one of the reasons she was so hurt and angry when she found out who he really was. This guy had listened in on private phone conversations, watched her get undressed, saw her naked in the shower, had been in her bedroom - actually under her bed -- watching her in what she thought were private moments. I don't know if I could have forgiven a man for something like that, even it was his job. That wouldn't make it any less despicable to me. Chris and Bill were barking like hounds when Maria was taking off her top and were disappointed that she didn't turn around so they could see her breasts. Wonder how Bill's wife would have felt about that behavior? Barring their degenerate and disrespectful behavior, the movie was indeed hilarious and it held my attention from beginning to end.

Also, Maria exercised poor judgment --- she just took Chris' word that he was the telephone repairman. She didn't ask for identification and just threw open the door and let him in her apartment. Can we say Boston Strangler? Chris simply climbed through an open window in order to search Maria's bedroom. She wasn't very security conscious at all. A real rapist or killer would have no problem gaining entry. She was a single woman and should have had better sense.

It bothered me that Maria's scenes had to be backed by some kind of pseudo-Latin music. That seemed a bit offensive to me. None of Chris and Bill's scenes called for some kind of ethnic background music. When Maria was in her kitchen cooking, she was bopping around while she stirred her food and boogeying her way over to answer the telephone. It seemed to suggest "that of course, those free-spirited, hot blooded Latinas always danced while preparing a meal and had to have some kind of music playing in the background to do the simplest of chores." Just like many commercials that feature "African Americans" have to have someone rapping, or break dancing or singing a gospel song. Can we ever get past these stereotypes?

Aidan Quinn playing a bad guy --- he was convincingly evil and perfect for the part. A lot of directors wouldn't have been savvy enough to cast him.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable movie that still feels fresh after 20 years.

This is kind of funny and, for the most part, enjoyable. On the surface it looks like another comic cop thriller but, really, the core of the plot couldn't be older. That is -- it goes way past "The Gay Divorcée," past the Greek or Roman from whom Shakespeare stole "A Comedy of Errors," back past the masques, winding up somewhere I would guess around Homo cromagnonsesis in Les Ezyies de Tayac. The mistaken-identity plot is framed by a bit of violence. First, Dreyfus gets into a fist fight with a perp he and Estevez are chasing (Estevez is nothing much more than a straight man in this movie) and the two combatants fall into a huge container of fish and barely escape being filleted by the Chinese workers. The second involves a shoot out between Aidan Quinn's villain and a lot of cop cars and owes a lot to the chase in "Bullitt", although done mostly for laughs. At the end there is another strictly conventional shootout and fist fight, aboard a boat, on top of rolling logs (this is Seattle), and in a timber mill which gives us a good idea of how gigantic saws are used to turn logs into planks -- and men into planks as well, given half a chance.

Quinn is excellent, but so is almost everyone else. Madeleine Stowe is drop-dead gorgeous, with or without Hispanic makeup, and she can act too. Dreyfus is very funny. He is caught in all sorts of embarrassing situations and gets a chance to display that expression of abject humiliation that he does so well. He gets a chance to do a lot of physical comedy too, running around wearing a pink sun hat, wrapped in a shawl, while pursued by the police. And when he inadvertently reveals he is spying on Stowe, during a phone call in which he warns her that her food is burning, she demands to know how he knew. He tears his eyes from the telescope and tells her, "I -- er -- I could hear is sizzling in the background." Then he turns his face to the side, wrinkled with disgust, and hisses to himself -- "Heard it SIZZLING in the background?" There are all sorts of run-ins in which she still thinks he is the phone repairman he's been pretending to be, and they're all engagingly cute.

It's not a masterpiece of comedy, and the realistic violence is out of place. But it's smoothly, professionally done. There is an icky them song, but the composer gives Stowe's scenes a bouncy fingido-sabor-Latino sound. I've seen this a couple of times and keep waiting to be bored by it but have never quite been able to get over the hump.

Stakeout fmovies. Dreyfuss and Estavez just "click" in this movie. They both bounce off each other so well, its a very funny and entertaining movie! A pair of bumbling detectives set out on a seemingly boring assignment watching an ex girlfriend of an escaped convict. Not looking forward to the assignment they set up surveillance and to the surprise of Dreyfuss, he begins to fall for her. Almost getting caught placing a bug in the house and the back and forth chit chat between the two detectives via their two ways is particularly funny. Also their relieving shift of detectives have a warped sense of humor and this itself is a constant battle to for the detectives to try and work out what has been booby-trapped for them by the previous shift. Aiden Quinn is just brilliant as Richard "stick" Montgomery... a truly great performance. Do you think I liked this movie?! I think I did... and Another Stakeout is good but not quite up to the first one but very close. I cannot recommend this movie enough!! Get it, you will enjoy it!

For a film which reached number 1 at the US box office and earned enough movie for the studio to green-light a sequel, Stakeout has strangely enough become a forgotten 80s gem.

The story is simple, officers Lecce (Richard Dreyfuss) and and Reimers (Emilio Estevez) are assigned to a stakeout of the house of waitress Maguire (Madeleine Stowe), hoping that her fugitive ex-boyfriend (Aidan Quinn) will return to her house. Things soon take a bizarre twist, as Lecce, posing as a telephone repairman, and Maguire start to fall in love.

Although the film offers no originality and is riddled with clichés, it is very entertaining. Although it runs for nearly two hours, it thankfully doesn't feel that long and the story keeps you interested all the way. Richard Dreyfus and Emilio Estevez are quality comedians, somewhat surprisingly in my opinion. Their jokes and banter make the comedy part of this film work well.

The thriller elements are good too, Aidan Quinn does a good job making his character look like a real bad-ass, and the film's action sequences are really solid pre-cgi-stuff. I was especially impressed by the car chase, which looks really good.

Overall, this is pure solid 80s entertainment and I think this film deserves to be remembered and watched. I think it is equally good as many other 80s action classics like "48 hours" for example. Recommended!

I think this is one of the under-appreciated movies from the 1980s. It blends realistic action and comedy well, without taking itself too seriously. I agree with reviewers that Dreyfuss in this movie proves he was very good at comedy movies if they were written well, like this was. And Aidan Quinn is very good also (in fact, from "Desperately Seeking Susan" in 1985, to "Stakeout," to 1994's "Legends of the Fall" he has consistently given reliably good performances). For a late 1980s movie, it has aged fairly well. It's almost hard to believe that this movie came out only two years after Estevez was in "The Breakfast Club." I wish there were more movies like this that blended action and comedy as well as "Stakeout" did.