Film Review: Top Secret! (1984)

(source: tmdb.org)

Parodies are the kind of films that age the worst. It happens for one simple reason – audience must have at least some familiarity with what is about to be spoofed and if this is not the case, point of joke will be lost. There are very few parodies, at least in modern age, that avoid this fate and one of them was Airplane!, popular disaster film parody that managed to transcend limitations of time due to enormous talent of its creators – Jim Abrachams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker. Their next project, 1984 film Top Secret!, became box office disappointment and one of the more obscure titles in their filmography.

The protagonist, played by Val Kilmer in his first film role, is Nick Rivers, young rock & roll singer whose song about “skeet surfing” became monstrous hit. He is chosen by government to represent USA at the cultural festival held in Communist East Germany. The festival coincides with East German plans to reunite Germany on their own terms after disabling NATO with the use of superweapon. Nick meets Hillary Flammond (played by Lucy Gutteridge), beautiful daughter of Dr. Paul Flammond (played by Michael Gough), scientist who is held captive by East Germans and forced to develop the superweapon. She is determined to free her father with the help of British secret service and resistance movement. Nick decides to help her, partly because he is attracted to her and two of them contact the resistance cell, which turns out to be led by Hillary’s old boyfriend Nigel (played by Christopher Villiers).

Failure of this film could be best explained by lack of focus of the creators. Unlike Airplane!, which spoofed one genre and actually had plot tightly structured around genuine non-comedy film,Top Secret! tries to spoof two very different genres – WW2 era spy films of 1940s and 1960s rock musicals. Film was made at the zenith of re-escalating Cold War and the authors used this as an opportunity to portray German Democratic Republic as virtually undistinguishable from Third Reich. However, they didn’t stop there and also made that country look like WW2-era occupied France, with actual resistance movement made out of Frenchmen and RAF conducting secret airlifts using WW2 era planes. Like anachronisms in the Airplane!, this creates surrealist atmosphere which is effectively used in couple of gags. Many of the gags and jokes are presented in rapid sequence and they vary in quality and effectiveness. The cast is, on the other hand, excellent, especially Kilmer who tried to make the best of his big screen debut by displaying great acting skills in one of his rare comedic roles as well as dancing and actually singing, which results in one of the most formidable Elvis Presley impersonations in mainstream films. He is aided by very talented Lucy Gutteridge and the number of highly respected actors in small roles where their deadpan delivery and utter seriousness contributes to humour. They include Omar Sharif as British secret agent, Jeremy Kemp as arrogant German general and Peter Cushing as book seller. Christopher Villiers is also effective in memorable role of Nigel, but only to those who previously watched Blue Lagoon and are familiar with the character played by Christopher Atkins in that film. However, spoofing of relatively recent and popular romantic adventure seems out of place in the film that was supposed to be focused on films made decades earlier. This approach, that would doom many parodies made in 1990s and later, make this film less accessible to the younger viewers, just like this film won’t be properly appreciated by those unfamiliar with differences between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, two US presidents who are subjects of couple of jokes in the film. Time wasn’t kind to Top Secret!, but older audience and hard core cinephiles somewhat familiar with the subject, will have good reasons to expect quality entertainment.

RATING: 6/10 (++)