Top Secret! (1984)
Director: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Having spoofed one genre with considerable success, the Airplane team cast their net wider to send up a host of venerable movie chestnuts. Set in a peculiar national and temporal limbo, it has US teen rock idol Nick Rivers (Kilmer) travelling to Nazified East Germany to entertain culturally deprived Iron Curtain bobby-soxers. The gags come thick, fast and arbitrary - surfing gags, Pacman gags, Steve McQueen Great Escape gags - all aimed at the belly or lower, with a variable strike rate. The first half chugs along quite happily, but whereas in Airplane the jokes could simply be strung on a hand-me-down storyline, here the demands of the plot start to play havoc with the levity. Signs of desperation have begun to creep in some time before the end.Author: JP
Cast & crew
Director: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Producer: Jon Davison, Hunt Lowry
Cast: Val Kilmer, Lucy Gutteridge, Peter Cushing, Christopher Villiers, Jeremy Kemp, Warren Clarke, Michael Gough, Omar Sharif full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 90 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Hippies who work for The Man
To celebrate George Clooney comedy 'The Men who Stare at Goats', we look back at six memorable onscreen hippies who fought the system from within
Roland Emmerich's guide to disaster movies
Ahead of the release of '2012', Roland Emmerich offers his ten tips on creating the perfect global catastrophe
Grant Heslov: interview
Grant Heslov, director of 'The Men who Stare at Goats' talks about his old pal George Clooney, his interest in the paranormal, and his fond memories of working on 'Happy Days'
The Coen brothers discuss 'A Serious Man'
Masters of contrary comedy, Joel and Ethan Coen have struck gold again with their latest, ‘A Serious Man’
Ten inspirations behind 'Avatar'?
Time Out ponders the influences behind James Cameron's anticipated space-opera on the basis of the trailer
Michael Jackson's This Is It: review
Kenny Ortega's posthumous concert film is a rousing eulogy for one of pop's great enigmas
Michael Haneke: The man behind the menace
From Cannes to Munich to London, Dave Calhoun tours Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winner, 'The White Ribbon'
Lone Scherfig talks 'An Education'
Danish director Lone Scherfig was an unlikely choice for a very English affair like 'An Education'. Cath Clarke meets her
How Jane Campion brought John Keats back to life
Time Out gets Romantic with the ‘difficult’ New Zealander about her new film, 'Bright Star'
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations












What do you think?
Post your review now