Collision Course (1989)

'Lethal Weapon' had stormed the buddy cop genre two years earlier thus kick starting the whole concept into overdrive. The late 80's early 90's was probably the height of this type of action flick, fast paced, simple plot, plenty of car chases, explosions and you're obligatory uneasy partnership between two bickering heroes.

This is probably one of the least heard of films in that genre, Jay Leno paired with Pat Morita?...errr why? how is that gonna work? a tiny elderly Japanese man and a guy with a head shaped like the moon. Sounds totally bizarre and frankly it is! the whole concept is totally ridiculous and offers nothing accept the uniqueness of the pair.

I guess because Leno was a popular stand up comedian at the time and Morita was big having just played Mr Miyagi. Unfortunately this combination just doesn't work at all, Leno can't act to save his life and he isn't funny at any moment. Morita is a solid actor but really doesn't fit this kind of film, he looks very uncomfortable the whole time especially when the action kicks off. Morita literately has to step back from all the gun fights and fisticuffs because he clearly can't do it, his character either misses it or watches from the sidelines.

Like I say the only thing this film has going for it is the unique pairing of Leno and Morita. The film also has a pretty decent cast that were probably hired due to their previous big hit films. Ernie Hudson has a minor role coming off 'Ghostbusters', Chris Sarandon is the main villain after success with 'Fright Night' and Tom Noonan as the main henchman with previous hits 'Monster Squad' and 'Manhunter'.

It just seems the powers that be have grabbed as many big names of the time as possible and thrown them all together in this dismal excuse for an action film. The plot just lurches from one boring set piece to another with terrible action sequences, terribly cliched dialog (although not for the time of course) and a lame plot about a stolen supercharger. Yes really that's it, would a Japanese cop travel all the way from Japan to the US for a stolen car engine part?

I only saw this out of morbid curiosity because it had Jay Leno in an action film, now I've satisfied my curiosity I can say without a doubt it wasn't worth it.

3/10