Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) Sylvester Stallone, Estelle Getty, JoBeth Williams Movie Review

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Estelle Getty as Tutti Bomowski in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Stallone goes Tutti Frutti

Most people have at least one, some have more than one and often they can be quite embarrassing but most people have that movie which is a guilty pleasure and "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" is one of mine. I know this movie is bad, the storyline is both obvious and wafer thin whilst the comedy borders on the idiotic, and yes even Stallone reportedly thinks of it as his worst movie, but "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" is so silly that it ends up making me smile. There is just something about the wonderful Estelle Getty making Stallone's life a misery by humiliating him than makes me laugh even if there isn't an ounce of cleverness to any of it.

Sgt. Joe Bomowski (Sylvester Stallone - Rocky V) may not be the best cop on the force but he gets the job done, that is until suddenly his mum Tutti (Estelle Getty - Mannequin) decides to turn up for a surprise visit. Despite Joe being a grown man Tutti still treats him like a little boy, cleaning his home, cooking him meals but also humiliating him at every opportunity by talking about him to everyone and anyone as well as showing them his baby photos. But when she naively buys a machine gun from a back of a van to replace the gun she wrecked she draws them both into a case of insurance fraud and gun dealing. Not only that she also meddles with his love life trying to match make her son with his superior Lt. Gwen Harper (JoBeth Williams - Child in the Night).

Sylvester Stallone as Sgt. Joe Bomowski in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Now there are two sides to the storyline to "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" neither of which is in fact that good. We have the utterly unoriginal crime story where we have criminals, illegal guns and moronic heavies the sort of thing which could have been pinched from any number of superior comedy crime movies. Then there is the story of Joe's mother Tutti showing up and making his life a complete misery by basically treating him like a little boy and embarrassing him at every opportunity. And just to be a little bit more obvious you have Tutti end up helping Joe solve the crime and catch the bad guys none of which is that entertaining.

But to be honest you shouldn't watch "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" for the storyline because this is a movie which is all about comedy and the comedy of little Estelle Getty humiliating the big Sylvester Stallone. Now like the story none of this is either original or clever as she embarrasses him by telling his friends about her little boy, showing baby photos and messing with his love life and what is worse is that it is repetitive. But it is so bad and so silly that you end up laughing at how stupid it gets not because of the jokes themselves. A scene where Joe tries to talk down a suicide attempt only to be interrupted by his mother is so poor Stallone looks embarrassed but it is that daft that it makes you laugh in disbelief. I suppose what I am saying is that don't expect to enjoy "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" for either the storyline or humour but revel in its terribleness.

Terrible would be a good way to describe pretty much all the performances but once again they are so bad they make you laugh. Stallone may not be the greatest comedic actor but his delivery as Joe is cheesy, so over the top that you just laugh, if you didn't laugh crying would be the next emotion in line. Estelle Getty whilst as his naive and bossy mum Tutti is a little more amusing again it all feels very forced as if Getty was waiting to be prompted before delivering her lines which I am sure she wasn't. And seeing that Stallone and Getty are what "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" focuses on the rest of the cast which includes JoBeth Williams fair no better.

What this all boils down to is that "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" is an undeniably bad movie, the storyline is unoriginal as is the humour and the acting is shaky at best. But it is one of those movies which become a guilty pleasure, causing you to laugh at how stupid it is rather than at the jokes themselves.


LATEST REVIEWS