Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)

So much average

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There are occasions when I feel like watching a movie I know is meant to be bad on purpose, this had been shown on TV a number of times, I knew it was rated badly, so I thought I'd indulge myself in trash, directed by Roger Spottiswoode (Turner & Hooch, Tomorrow Never Dies, The 6th Day, A Street Cat Named Bob). Basically Sergeant Detective Joe Bomowski (Razzie winning Sylvester Stallone) is an efficient, tough cop. He has a love affair with Lieutenant Gwen Harper (JoBeth Williams), but he cannot make a serious commitment. One time, when she asks why he cannot commit, he gives the unconvincing excuse that his mother is visiting him, he makes a call to his mother to make this excuse a reality. Soon enough, Joe's seemingly frail, overprotective mother Tutti (Razzie winning Estelle Getty) comes from Newark, New Jersey, to spend a couple of days with him. Joe's life is turned upside down by his mother's presence, she still treats him like a child, she meddles in his life, and constantly embarrasses him with stories and photographs from his childhood. Tutti makes the mistake of cleaning Joe's gun with bleach and ruins it, so she decides to go and buy him a new gun, and winds up buying an illegal MAC-10 machine pistol, and then witnesses the murder of one of the men who sold it to her. Tutti is questioned by police officer Ross (J. Kenneth Campbell) about what happened, but she frustrates him giving him vague and babbling detail, she only gives accurate information and description to her son, but she also interferes with his duty and other cases. The gun was part of a large collection taken from a burned building, and as the case continues they find corruption involving businessman Parnell (Roger Rees). No matter how Joe tries to restrain Tutti from getting involved with his work, she always manages to find a way to get out of it, and then ends up getting too close to dangerous people. In the end, following an attempted escape by the criminals at an air strip, Joe rescues his mother, and she shoots a bad guy in the shoulder before he can harm her son. In the end, Joe finally makes a commitment to Gwen, but before Tutti can go home, she recognises a man at the airport from America's Most Wanted, she remembers him on it for shooting his mother. Also starring Jurassic Park's Martin Ferrero as Paulie, Gailard Sartain as Munroe, John Wesley as Tony, Dennis Burkley as Mitchell, Ving Rhames as Mr. Stereo and Richard Schiff as Gun Clerk. Stallone is reasonable being the good guy, but he fails being driven mad and in tender moments, but much worse is Getty, the majority of the time she is highly irritating being eccentric, naïve and nit-picky. The jokes are obviously supposed to be coming from the buddy cop style, the cop having his life ruined by his annoying mother, I will admit some of the action moments were kind of fun, and there were moments that made me titter, but otherwise it a joke-free, badly written and almost detestable watch, a pointless comedy. It won the Razzie for Worst Screenplay. Pretty poor!

Stallone has made a few turds in his career - Grudge Match, Rhinestone, Judge Dredd and Rocky V being examples, however they are nowhere near as bad as this. Truly one of the most unfunny comedies ever.The premise is that Stallone's tough-cop character is visited by his nosy, interfering mother (Estelle Getty) after he breaks up with his partner. From here, it basically consists of a string of sequences where she does bad-ass things with weapons and the like alongside him.The main problem I had with this film is that it simply isn't funny. The gags and punchlines that are meant to make us laugh completely fail, and then proceed to repeat themselves throughout the film. Stallone and Getty weren't funny at all in the film, and I don't know how the filmmakers thought they were going to get people to laugh here.Want to get someone to confess to anything? Say "Stop! or you'll have to see 'Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot'".

"Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" was written by the late Blake Snyder (et. al), author of the popular "Save the Cat!" screen writing books, and seems to demonstrate the adage that those who can do, while those who can't teach. I was interested to see how the much touted Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (or BS-squared) was applied in one of his own screenplays, but was left more confused than enlightened. The opening image doesn't mirror the final image. The dark night of the soul was not particularly bleak or believable. I'm not sure of exactly what constitutes the A and B stories, but assume the mother helping son become a better policeman to win the girl was the B story and chasing down the arms dealers was the A story, but I don't see their synthesis. I expected a somewhat formulaic story with distinct beats and clearly defined acts, but found the beats blurred. The protagonists should be propelled into the second act, e.g., not his mother. One problem seems to be that the characters were stripped of distinct ethnic backgrounds and made generic. I would venture to guess that the role of Sgt. Joe Bomowski was originally envisioned as Jewish character with a Jewish mother. In my experience, having grown up with an Italian mother in a school district that was half Jewish, half gentile with very few blacks, Asians or Hispanics, Jewish mothers are very much like Italian mothers, but they are not identical or interchangeable. For both, culture and religious beliefs are important. Eating a good breakfast is important, but not a breakfast of generic foods. The late Estelle Getty did a good job with the role as written, but she didn't sprinkle her dialogue with Yiddish or Italian homilies, adages, or phrases. She wants her son to marry a nice girl, but not specifically a nice Jewish girl in a Synagogue or a nice Italian girl in a Catholic cathedral. Stripping away the ethnicity makes the characters much more shallow and less believable. The movie is a bit of a train wreck, but it has a few good moments. Mommy telling her son he needs to change, then showing him in nappies was amusing. Bomowski saying the office staff could figure something out because they were detectives was a good line. The airport chase scene was well done. But most of the movie is fairly tepid, lame, unoriginal and not believable, even within the relaxed standards of a comedy. The age-appropriate romance was particularly tepid. The villains weren't evil. The plot made little sense. The notion that an insurance company couldn't determine if steel devices were damaged in a fire that left the structure standing and would pay a claim on illegal inventory items stretched credulity past its limits. Police procedures were non-existent. Most of the jokes were forced and not particularly funny. Stallone is a talented actor and demonstrated his comedic skills in the under-rated "Oscar." Getty was also talented and gave the role her best. But they didn't look or act as if they were from the same family, despite insisting as much repeatedly in the dialogue.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is an action comedy that stars Sylvester Stallone,who tries to be a comedic actor in this movie and and Estelle Getty.Stop! It was written by Blake Snyder, William Osborne and William Davies; and directed by Roger Spottiswoode.Police detective Joe Bromowski has just broken off his relationship with his girlfriend and fellow police officer,Gwen Harper, so Joe's mother Tutti decides it's time to pay him a visit. Tutti proceeds to make Joe's life miserable by nagging him about his clothes, cleaning his apartment, washing his gun, tagging along on investigations, and somehow getting involved with a gun-running organization that the police have been trying to infiltrate.This is definitely one of the worst comedies ever release in cinema.The story is an unimaginative effort can be attributed to the script and the flat direction doesn't help.Obviously,Stallone misses his mark in it.