Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol

Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol is a 1987 American comedy film. It is the fourth installment in the Police Academy franchise. It was released on April 3, 1987 and is the sequel to Police Academy 3: Back in Training.

Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol
Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan
Directed byJim Drake
Written byGene Quintano
Based on
Characters
by
Produced byPaul Maslansky
Starring
CinematographyRobert Saad
Edited byDavid Rawlins
Music byRobert Folk
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • April 3, 1987 (1987-04-03)
Running time
88 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$17 million[1]
Box office$76.8 million[1]

A group of Police Academy graduates are sent to train a group of newly recruited civilian officers. The original Police Academy cast reprise their roles in the film. Capt. Harris, not seen since the first installment, returns as the film's nemesis. In Police Academy 2 and 3, Capt./Commandant Mauser (played by Art Metrano) filled that role, but Metrano asked to be replaced for the remainder of the series after filming number 3. This was the last Police Academy film to feature Steve Guttenberg as Carey Mahoney. This film also stars a young David Spade in his feature film debut, as well as featuring a brief appearance from pro skateboarder Tony Hawk as Spade's double in a skateboarding scene.[2] Despite the commercial success, the sequel was panned by film critics.

Plot

Commandant Eric Lassard decides the police force is overworked and understaffed, so he comes up with the idea of recruiting civilian volunteers to work side by side with his officers in a program called "Citizens On Patrol" (COP).

Carey Mahoney and his friends Moses Hightower, Larvell Jones, Eugene Tackleberry, Zed, Sweetchuck, Laverne Hooks, and Debbie Callahan are in charge of training the civilians. The civilians include the enormous Tommy "House" Conklin (who Hightower used to babysit), gung-ho senior citizen Lois Feldman, Tackleberry's own father-in-law, and skateboarding delinquents Kyle and Arnie. The latter pair were caught by Capt. Harris, and the judge was about to throw the book at them until Mahoney speaks to the judge to let Arnie and Kyle join the COP program as alternative punishment. The judge agrees, and the boys are joined by their attorney, Butterworth.

Believing "the concept of citizens doing police work is asinine", Harris is determined to see the COP program fail and take over Lassard's job at the academy. When Lassard leaves on an overseas conference, Harris, and his right-hand man Lt. Proctor, are put in charge of the academy and Harris immediately plots to make the COP volunteers quit and leave police work to officers.

The volunteers, however, do well in their training. Mrs. Feldman excels in firing Tackleberry's .44 Magnum, and they bond amicably (she reminds him of his mother). In training in water safety and drowning victim rescue, Zed rescues a cadet and gains a love interest, a reporter/photographer Laura, who has come to view Lassard's COP program and becomes attracted to Zed. Unfortunately, Harris ruins the moment, insulting them both and inspiring Zed to replace Harris' deodorant with mace, which burns his armpits. Despite pranks pulled on him during training, Harris is still determined to make the Citizens on Patrol program fail.

Jones learns that volunteers House, Kyle, and Arnie feel ready to go out and arrest criminals, so he, Mahoney, Hightower, and Tackleberry prank the boys, locking them in a prisoner transport van with Hightower, who is posing as a Voodoo practitioner who reanimates his "dead" brother (Tackleberry), as a Jason Voorhees-esque maniac with a chainsaw to make them take training more seriously. Later, after Captain Harris yells at Zed again, calling him a disgrace, Laura comforts him, saying she thinks he is perfect.

After COP volunteers accidentally foil an undercover police sting, the program is suspended, much to Harris' delight. Mahoney believes he did it on purpose to shut down the COP program, paying him back by putting superglue on the mouthpiece of Harris' bullhorn, semi-permanently sticking the mouth guard to its rims. Sometime later, Harris gives some prominent citizens a tour of his precinct when Proctor is tricked into releasing every inmate at the precinct 19 jail, including a team of ninjas, and special guest Randall "Tex" Cobb. After the criminals imprison Harris and his guests, they escape into the street, only to run into Mrs. Feldman, who immediately informs the Lassard academy.

When Lassard's officers hear of the jailbreak, COP volunteers are dispatched with the regular officers to catch the escaped felons. After stopping a robbery and a high-speed air balloon chase, the felons are all recaptured. Meanwhile, House, Kyle, Arnie, and Butterworth save Harris and Proctor from drowning in the river after the latters' attempt (and failure) to participate in the chase, and Zed impresses his girlfriend Laura by saving Sweetchuck's life after they both fall out of a plane in mid-air. Several of the police chiefs who witness Lassard's program in action congratulate and compliment him on the program and his officers, much to Harris' dismay.

Cast
Main article: List of Police Academy characters

Staff at The Academy

C.O.P. Program

Others

Music

Motown Records issued a soundtrack album on record and cassette; until 2013, this was the only film of the series to have a soundtrack album released.

  1. Rock the House - Darryl Duncan (5:29)
  2. It's Time to Move - S.O.S. Band (3:19)
  3. Dancin' Up a Storm - Stacy Lattisaw (3:29)
  4. Let's Go to Heaven in My Car - Brian Wilson (3:30)
  5. The High Flyers (Police Academy Theme - Montage) - Robert Folk (2:04)
  6. Citizens on Patrol - Michael Winslow And The L.A. Dream Team (4:16)
  7. Rescue Me - Family Dream (4:54)
  8. I Like My Body - Chico DeBarge (3:56)
  9. Winning Streak - Garry Glenn (3:12)
  10. Shoot for the Top - Southern Pacific (2:46)

Reception

Box office

The film debuted at number one in the United States weekend box office[3] and would go on to gross a total of $28,061,343.[4] It grossed $76,819,000 worldwide.[1]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rare approval rating of 0% based on reviews from 20 critics, with an average rating of 2.26/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Utterly, completely, thoroughly and astonishingly unfunny, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol sends a once-innocuous franchise plummeting to agonizing new depths."[5] On Metacritic the film has a score of 26% based on reviews from 8 critics, indicating "Generally unfavorable reviews".[6] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B−.[7]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "The Police Academy series seems to shoot for an ever younger crowd. The optimum viewer for Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol would be a 10-year-old boy. Even better, it would be a whole pack of them. That's not to say the film isn't funny; it means only that the sense of humor being addressed is very specific. Stay away if drawing room farce is what you're after."[8]

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "What’s so amazing about the Police Academy movies is that they keep being made even though they stopped being funny after the hilarious original. We’re now up to No. 4, and the most you can say for it is that it is the teeniest bit better, not quite so crass as the last two. [...] There might have been some comic possibilities in this, but writer Gene Quintano strays widely from the premise to toss out, hit-and-miss fashion, a series of pranks involving much slapstick humor and culminating in some aerial tomfoolery involving hot-air balloons and a pair of ancient biplanes. Unfortunately, the film never takes flight itself."[9]

The film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song for the song "Let's Go to Heaven in My Car". (It was the only film in the entire Police Academy film series to receive a Razzie nomination of any sort.)

See also

References
  1. Block, Alex Ben; Wilson, Lucy Autrey, eds. (2010). George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success. HarperCollins. p. 631. ISBN 9780061778896.
  2. "From Fired To Famous". Forbes. 2008-12-29. Retrieved 2010-11-18.
  3. "POLICE ACADEMY 4 FIRST IN BOX-OFFICE SALES". The New York Times. 1987-04-10. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
  4. "Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved September 29, 2010.
  5. "Police Academy 4". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  6. "Police Academy 4". Metacritic. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  7. "Cinemascore". Archived from the original on December 20, 2018.
  8. Maslin, Janet (1987-04-04). "FILM: 'POLICE ACADEMY 4'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  9. Thomas, Kevin (1987-04-06). "MOVIE REVIEW Improvement Police Academy 4': Pranks, Cranks". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
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