Review of Top Secret! (1984) by David A — 18 Apr 2010

(from The Watermark 08/16/96).

This is the least-known film by the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team who eventually brought us Police Squad!, Hot Shots!, and the Naked Gun flicks. After the success of their first feature film, Airplane!, satirizing the Airport movies, the ZAZ boys moved on to send up Nazi war films and Elvis musicals in one hilarious package. Top Secret! delivers the same biting satire and goofy wit that would pave the way for National Lampoon and Mel Brooks to imitate, but never equal. Val Kilmer plays a rock star who is the first American performer being allowed behind the iron curtain to do a concert in East Germany. When he valiantly helps out an attractive woman in distress, he finds himself involved in the underground resistance against the Nazis. The movie is chock-full of digs at popular 1980's movies including The Blue Lagoon and Raiders of the Lost Ark. One incredible scene was filmed completely backwards to make the actors sound like they're speaking in Swedish. Another bit takes place at the ballet where the male dancers all have enormous genitals bulging in their tights. (Yeah, like you wouldn't have looked there anyway.) Kilmer has a unexpectedly sharp sense of comedy, not to mention his great singing and dancing. Overall, Top Secret! is a silly laugh-fest from beginning to end.