there are those of us who think of leslie nielsen as the bumbling , hapless straight man from the hysterical " naked gun " films , crack an immediate smile and forgive him of whatever wavering movie spoof he 's committed himself to starring in since .
the wavering movie spoofs , however , are less forgivable .
to be fair , " wrongfully accused , " the send - up in question and nielsen 's third parody since the last " gun ,
" is n't quite as excruciatingly humorless as his " dracula :
dead and loving it " or " spy hard , " which is a mighty good thing .
nielsen is still in tip - top comedic form , able as ever to deadpan his way through even the most horrible puns ,
but he really needs a screenplay that plays off his talents instead of relying on them , and he needs one very soon .
" wrongfully accused " meshes together the premises of " the fugitive " and " patriot games ,
" casting its always game star as ryan harrison ( get it ? ) , a master violinist who is drawn into an affair with a married temptress (
kelly
le brock ) .
she , however , sets harrison up to take the rap for the murder of her husband ( michael york )
- a crime actually committed by a one - armed , one - legged , one - eyed man ( aaron pearl ) .
harrison is arrested , found guilty and sentenced to death , but
escapes from a prison bus , of course , and then is pursued by a determined u.
s.
marshal named fergus falls ( richard crenna , unnecessarily riffing off of tommy lee jones ' already smirky oscar - winning role ) .
there 's also a mystery brunette ( melinda mcgraw ) and an assassination subplot involving the u. n. secretary general , but like any of it matters .
" wrongfully accused " gets off to an assured start , with an in - concert nielsen , touted " lord of the violin " by bare - chested posters , pulling a jimi hendrix on his musical instrument as hundreds of tuxedo - clad mosh in front of the stage .
nice touch .
most of the scenes that follow , however , never top the opener .
( hysterical exceptions : the mentos and " baywatch " goofs . )
movie parodies are crammed in at an almost - subliminal rate , but most are empty .
when a giant snake lunges onto the screen and snatches a cast member a la " anaconda " or baseball players disappear into a " field of dreams " -esque cornfield
, there 's really nothing to laugh at .
other moments , like an interlude in a fishing shop , are so unfocused that you 're not sure what you 're supposed to be laughing at .
there seem to be more cheap references than frenzied send - ups here , so
it 's possible that director / writer pat proft , by bombarding the viewer with a careless mixture of the two , guarantees something is sure to stick .
and what does stick sticks well , particularly the jabs at genre conventions like stylized flashbacks and hard - boiled dialogue , what those
" naked gun " s ( which proft collaborated on ) did great ; these bits are so on - target that they allow you to remember " wrongfully accused " as an almost - halfway - there spoof instead of a lame - brained failure .
the movie might have been cursed to begin with , opening fast on the heels of " mafia ! " , from proft colleague jim abrahams , and " baseketball , " from proft colleague david zucker , but
it 's a strong possibility that nobody is going to be accusing " wrongfully accused " of being nielsen 's funniest .
Output: N