Another Stakeout

Another Stakeout

“Another Stakeout” doesn’t seem very promising at first, as it is just another unnecessary sequel to a movie that although entertaining, has probably been forgotten by anyone who didn’t gain a profit from its rehash. As the lights dimmed, someone behind me asked in not-so-encouraging terms “What’s this a sequel to?”

Not “Another,” I slouched back into my seat, resting my elbows on those damned round plastic soft-drink holders at the ends of the chair arms and prepared to be bored. Evil thoughts about theater owners who would rather make room for their 32-ounce slurpies than for their customers’ forearms flitted through my mind. And then the movie began to grow on me.

The story concerns a federal witness (Cathy Moriarity) whom the mob wants dead. She escapes when a “safe house” explodes (in an amazingly protracted sequence where we see it blow up seven or eight times from different angles; she must have been hiding in a whole subdivision).

Then it appears she may be hiding with friends in a big luxury home beside a lake outside Seattle.

Two cops played by Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez have recently disgraced themselves, and so they are assigned to stake out the vacation home, under the command of a district attorney (Rosie O’Donnell). The suspects next door are played by Dennis Farina and Marcia Strassman.

There is exasperated affection between Estevez and Dreyfuss. O’Donnell is good at standing her ground and speaking her mind. The plot makes just enough sense to hang gags on.

The three law officers are playing a married couple (Dreyfuss and O’Donnell) and his son by his first marriage (Estevez he’s forced to shave off his mustache). They try not entirely successfully – to memorize the “facts” about the characters they’re portraying, and O’Donnell does mom by doing a lot of cooking. (She makes appetizers out of boiled eggs and black olives, combined to look like a lot of little penguins standing around).

It says something about the plot of this crime thriller that the single best scene involves a dinner party. The scene is lovingly set up. The older folks invite Farina and Strassman over for dinner, while Estevez sneaks next door to plant a bug, and in an endless series of misunderstandings this leads to a scene where Farina eats his dessert so fast that it becomes, amazingly, one of the funniest moments I’ve seen in a long time.

What’s interesting is the way Farina makes the most of his supporting role; he’s basically just the guy next door who may or may not be harboring a fugitive, but it’s ingenious the way he walks in to dinner as an apparent threat to the cops and then eventually puts two and two together incorrectly and becomes convinced that he’s the one in danger.

The rest of “Another Stakeout” is not much good, but it has its moments. Movies like this are chewing gum for the mind. This one holds its flavor longer than some others.

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