Night Patrol Review

MPAA Rating: R
Released: 1984

Ever since its arrival, critics have vilified Night Patrol as being a worthless slab of cinematic trash. In fact an E! documentary of Linda Blair's life pointed to this comedy as being the low point of her career.

So does Night Patrol deserve the condemnation that so many toss at it? Maybe. It's about as crude, crass, obnoxious, vulgar and juvenile as movies come. And while my movie reviewer's card may be pulled by saying this… it's also often hilarious!

Night Patrol opens with Officer Melvin White (Murray Langston) pulling over a vehicle driving with an unsecured trunk door. Not so out of the ordinary, until you consider that the driver is a psychotic French mental patient laced up in a straightjacket. As the horny Frenchman spits out a stream of vulgar solicitations to the oblivious police officer, Melvin helps close the man's trunk, not taking notice of a machine gun, ammo clip and body of a victim hanging out from the trunk!

Still not convinced Melvin isn't one of the sharpest tools in the shed? Another series of scenes that occurs in rapid succession should be more than sufficient to shed light on the clueless cop:

As he walks in the park during a sunny day, pigeons start crapping on him. In retaliation he pulls out his pistol and starts picking them off.
Coming across the scene of a mugging victim, the cop leaps in to assist, as any peace officer should do. The problem? He accidentally helps the mugger!
He gets his ass kicked by a five or six year old girl.

Perhaps it was inevitable, given the above, that Melvin is assigned to work the night shift by Captain Lewis (Billy Barty), a dwarf with a serious flatulence problem. His new partner is Kent Lane (Pat Paulsen), an experienced officer that has a way with women. In fact as the two are getting to know each other Kent remarks how he "f**ked" a fellow police officer's brains out the previous evening… and right on cue a suited female police officer passes on by babbling and drooling like a brainless wonder.

In Melvin's spare time he works the comedy circuits as the Unknown Comic (80's children should recognize this fellow). Much to Melvin's dismay, he soon discovers that there is an armed robber masquerading as the Unknown Comic as he robs various businesses while spitting out off-color jokes. For example, the owner of a lesbian bar complains of the robber's terrible jokes: "Well, he asked us if our favorite TV program was the Dick Van Dyke show."

Now Melvin and his partner must capture the fake Unknown Comic before everyone starts pointing the finger at his own secret persona.

I think it's pretty clear from the above that this movie is as un-politically correct as they come. You have farting midget police captains, pregnant hookers advertising two-for-one sales, crowds betting on illegal cockfights in alleyways (and I don't mean roosters) and just about any other offensive joke you can think of.

Night Patrol takes a page out of the Zucker book of comedy (Airplane, Naked Gun, etc.) by relying on wordplay and sight gags that mercilessly poke fun at perfectly normal statements. For example, during a furious shootout in the city Melvin desperately requests backup. In response a cop car arrives… in reverse. Two police officers leave the vehicle, crouch down and head towards the scene of the crime… in reverse. Yes, it's lame – but doggone it, sometimes it just works.

If you can tolerate vulgar and often juvenile humor then I think you'll find some serious laughs to be had in Night Patrol. Not all jokes stick, but so many are thrown at you that you never really have time to think about the failed jokes. In addition many of the jokes are so outrageous you're almost afraid to see what's coming next!

On the flip side, the flatulence problem of Captain Lewis got old quick. It's hard to massacre toilet humor – it's one of those subjects that will forever be ingrained in the comedy genre. But Night Patrol dropped the ball nonetheless. Rather than laugh, I wanted nothing more than to shove a cork up the offending orifice.

The movie starts off with a bang, but the latter fourth of Night Patrol finds the laughs becoming scarcer. This doesn't ruin the film since lost momentum is fairly common in comedy films of this nature, but it still opens the door for some disappointment.

Night Patrol is not for everyone. If you enjoy dry, intellectual humor and can't find yourself getting down and dirty with sex gags and toilet humor then you probably will find nothing of merit here. On the other hand, if you enjoy the occasional raunchfest like I do, be sure to pick up Night Patrol.

Movie rating: 7 stars

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Night Patrol IMDb Page

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