Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker’s 1984 film “Top Secret!”, which recently happens to be available on Netflix in South Korea along with a bunch of notable American films from the 1980s, remains as a fairly funny comedy movie. Just like the directors’ previous film “Airplane!” (1980), some of its jokes and gags are rather dated at present, but the movie still provides to us plenty of laughs, and it also distinguishes itself with a rare comic turn by its leading actor.

Val Kilmer, who sadly passed away early in last year, plays Nick Rivers, a popular American rock and roll star musician recently invited to some big international culture festival to be held in East Germany. Although he is warned in advance that he should behave well before arriving in East Berlin, he does not seem that interested in showing good behaviors to his East German hosts, and that naturally leads to a series of small and big comic moments including his impromptu music performance in front of many other guests.

Needless to say, Rivers soon gets himself into a very, very, very serious situation. When he happens to come across a young local woman named Hillary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge), he is simply interested in having some good time with this pretty young lady, but it turns out that she is being chased by the local police, and that certainly causes a bigger trouble than Rivers expected. He later happens to come across a sinister top secret military plan ready to be executed by the East Germany government within a few days, and he and Hilary, who is revealed to be the daughter of a brilliant scientist forced to work on this plan, must stop this evil plan in addition to rescuing her father.

The story itself is quite simple on the whole, but that is more than enough as the comic ground for a heap of various gags and laughs to be unleashed by the directors, who wrote the screenplay with Martyn Burke. Yes, the audiences at present may not understand a number of dated jokes such as the letter burned by a certain supporting character at the end of one brief scene early in the movie, but, fortunately, there are a lot of stuffs still quite funny. I am always tickled by that train station scene which is packed with hilarious visual gags to notice and enjoy, and I also appreciate the considerable efforts put into the scene unfolded inside a little bookstore (The performers and the crew actually shot the entire scene in backward, by the way).

During the second half, the movie becomes all the more outrageous with more gags and jokes besides some deliberately blatant anachronistic touches. While those East German villains in the story look more like your average Nazi bad guys, there are even a bunch of French Resistance members led by someone from Hillary’s old past, which is incidentally a humorous parody of “The Blue Lagoon” (1980).

In case of Rivers, he gives several musical moments along the story, which are definitely reminiscent of those famous songs written by Elvis Presley and those old musical movies of his. Playing his character as straight as possible, Kilmer willingly hurls himself into these cheerfully silly musical moments, and he also demonstrates his considerable singing ability which would be utilized more later in “The Doors” (1991). Now I remember one comment I came across a long time ago: “If you still think Val Kilmer is a very serious actor even after watching this movie, you really have a serious problem in your sense of humor.”

The rest of the cast members also stick to playing straight to the end while never looking self-conscious at all. Lucy Gutteridge is suitably earnest even during her silliest moments in the film including a brief funny scene where her character’s certain body part shows her literally glowing love toward Rivers, and I enjoy the wry imitation of James Mason by Christopher Villiers, who is also absolutely serious as the leader of those French Resistance members in the story. While Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, and Warren Clarke have their own little comic moments as slyly providing faux gravitas to the film, Omar Sharif does not hesitate to look very silly during one particular key scene early in the story, which reminds us again that playing straight is usually the best way to get more laughs from us.

Compared to the considerable commercial success of “Airplane!”, “Top Secret!” was relatively less successful despite being as funny and inspired as the former. However, Abrahams and Zucker Brothers, who have also been known as “ZAZ”, moved on with several other notable comedy films including “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” (1988) and “Hot Shots!” (1991). Unfortunately, these fairly amusing comedy films were subsequently followed by numerous similar but lesser comedy films such as “Scary Movie” (2000) and “Epic Movie” (2007), many of which frustratingly did not know well how to play music, let alone how to play notes. These cheap imitators simply made fun of popular movies instead of really lampooning all those rote genre conventions and cliches just like their seniors, and that is the main reason why they were quite forgettable from the very beginning.  

In conclusion, “Top Secret” can be disregarded as a mere mixed bag of gags, but it is too good to be overshadowed by “Airplane!” in my humble opinion. No, it has not risen in its status like “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” (1987) or “Groundhog Day” (1993) during last four decades, but its cheerfully free-wheeling parody remains funny as ever, so I urge you to check it out if you enjoyed “Airplane!” or “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!”.