Recruits

(Rafal Zielinski, 1986)
The peculiarly sluggish opening scenes suggest an actual attempt at understatement - Mike Macdonald doesn't even make an ass of himself - but sheer ineptitude seems a likelier explanation. Soon enough, the civilian recruits begin their police training, and the movie regresses into a long series of stock slapstick setups with a shockingly short attention span; quite often the camera appears to be leading our eye to a visual gag that never appears. The actors are all playing one-dimensional stereotypes, and what thin character logic there is keeps getting broken in the service of these witless, lifeless blackout gags. Making matters worse are the scenes involving racist rednecks (the black cop is actually tarred and feathered) or cops shooting at children on tricycles; these are desperately tin-eared and uncomfortable, showing a complete lack of feel for the genial tastelessness the genre requires. The cast is game and tries their best to whip up some energy in the vacuum, but you are unlikely to come away satisfied even if you like uncommonly alienated boob shots, pallid tributes to scenes from other movies, and people falling into water.