Spies Like Us Soundtrack

Yet another bad movie in a lengthy string of losers for all three of the principals involved here: director John Landis and stars Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. Chase and Aykroyd play a pair of bumbling would-be CIA agents who are spotted cheating on the entrance exam. So the CIA decides to use them as bait in a mission to flummox the Russians. Lots of pointless slapstick and mugging, but Landis hasn't made a genuinely funny film since Trading Places. Aykroyd and Chase seem smug and self-satisfied (don't they always?), as though they can rest forever on laurels earned during the 1975 season of Saturday Night Live. Look for a gaggle of film directors (Terry Gilliam, Joel Coen, Costa-Gavras) in cameo roles: that's the closest this film comes to cleverness. --Marshall Fine