National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1

Samuel L. Jackson is someone who is not usually associated with comedy. Sure, a lot his characters have some funny one liners, but most of us expect to see him playing a bad ass or doing a heavy drama. Back in 1993 however, he teamed up with Emilio Estevez in the Lethal Weapon spoof National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1.

When his former partner in law enforecement Billie York, Whoopi Goldberg, is gunned down by a mad man, Tim Curry, Sgt. Wes Lugar, Jackson, takes on the case to avenge her death. His captain, Frank McRae, teams him up with the unbalanced agent Jack Colt, Estevez. Their clues lead them General Mortars, William Shatner, a psycho who was after a recipe that York had that could turn cocaine into Wilderness Girls cookies.

I usually don't like spoofs that are making fun of something that already is kind of funny, but Loaded Weapon kind of makes it work. Estevez and Jackson seem to be having a lot of fun playing off one another. The always reliable Curry is also funny as the hitman.he sight of him dressed as a Wilderness Girl is worth the price of admission. Shatner is over the top as usual, but it works for this character. And Jon Lovitz gets some laughs in playing a parody of the Joe Pesci character from Lethal Weapon. And there's a cameo in almost every scene. Everybody from Bruce Willis to Eric Estrada pops up.

Intersting sidenote about this movie, New Line Cinema, the film's distributer, originally intended this to be a big screen version of the 80's tv cult hit Sledge Hammer. They were hoping to capitalize on the success of The Naked Gun series. Which itself was based off of another 80's tv cult hit Police Squad. Not wanting to be a knockoff of The Naked Gun, Sledge hammer creator Alan Spencer passed. So the script was rewritten into what became Loaded Weapon.

Even though the one 1 in the title might have seemed like a joke, New Line had every intention of making a sequel. But since this wasn't a huge hit, that never came to fruitation.

This isn't on the same level as Airplane, but if you're in the mood for something silly, Loaded Weapon is worth seeing.

It's available on dvd.