Dragnet (1987)

When Los Angeles is confronted with a series of bizarre crimes, it is up to by-the-book cop Joe Friday and his unconventional new partner Pep Streebek to solve the case.

The two mismatched cops are soon up to their necks in trouble and at each other’s throats.

It’s a trawl through the comic depths for this parody of Jack Webb’s popular 1950s TV series, in which stony-faced cops took themselves so seriously that it was already a hoot without this interference.

Dan Aykroyd is the deadpan and oh-so-decent nephew of Webb’s Sergeant Joe Friday (who even shares his uncle’s rank and name), lumbered with an amorally dishevelled partner in Tom Hanks, as he battles porn king Dabney Coleman and Satanist Christopher Plummer.

A virgin sacrifice is the least of it, and, as far as laughs are concerned, the most of it, despite the talents of Aykroyd and Hanks and the valiant efforts of director Tom Mankiewicz, who made his name as a scriptwriter on three Bond movies in the early 1970s.

Detective Sgt Joe Friday
Dan Aykroyd
Pep Streebek
Tom Hanks
Rev Jonathan Whirley
Christopher Plummer
Captain Bill Gannon
Harry Morgan
Connie Swail
Alexandra Paul
Emil Muzz
Jack O’Halloran
Commissioner Jane Kirkpatrick
Elizabeth Ashley
Jerry Caesar
Dabney Coleman
Enid Borden
Kathleen Freeman
Mayor Parvin
Bruce Gray

Director
Tom Mankiewicz