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Hot Shots begins at Flemner Air Base 20 years in the past. A pilot named Leland “Buzz” Harley (Bill Irwin) loses control of his plane and ejects, leaving his co-pilot Dominic “Mailman” Farnum (Ryan Stiles) to crash alone; although Mailman survives, he’s mistaken for a deer owing to the branches stuck to his helmet and is shot by a hunter.
Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen) wakes up from a nightmare he’s having about the event when Lt. Commander Block (Kevin Dunn) asks him to return to active duty as a pilot in the U.S. Navy, to help on a new top secret mission: Operation Sleepy Weasel. Harley starts to show some psychological problems, especially when his father is mentioned. His therapist, Ramada (Valeria Golino), tries to keep Topper from flying, but she relents, and also starts to build a budding romance with Topper. Meanwhile, Topper gets into a rivalry with another fighter pilot, Kent Gregory (Cary Elwes), who hates Topper because of the loss of his father “Mailman” to Buzz Harley, and believes Topper may do the same to him.
Meanwhile, Block starts privately meeting with an airplane tycoon, Mr. Wilson, who has recently built a new “Super Fighter” that will make the American pilots superior. Block reveals that he brought back Topper for the reason of making Sleepy Weasel fail. Block would then report that it was the Navy’s planes that were the real reason for the mission failure and that they need to be replaced with Wilson’s planes.
During one of the last training missions, an unfortunate accident between Pete “Dead Meat” Thompson (William O’Leary) and Jim “Wash-Out” Pfaffenbach (Jon Cryer) occurs, leaving Dead Meat dead and Wash Out reassigned to radar operator. Block believes this is enough to convince the Navy to buy new fighters, but Wilson brushes it aside as a “minor incident”, and the planes need to fail in combat for anyone to take notice.
Meanwhile, Topper starts to show more and more feelings for Ramada, but she is also smitten with Gregory, who believes Topper cannot handle combat pressure. On the carrier U.S.S. Essess, Block reveals the mission to be an attack of an Iraqi nuclear plant and assigns Topper to lead the mission, much to Gregory’s chagrin. Meanwhile, Wilson, who is also on board, coerces a crew member to sabotage the planes, putting the pilots’ lives at risk. At first, the mission goes according to Block’s plan. He mentions Buzz Harley to Topper, who becomes overcome with emotion and unable to lead the mission. Block just starts to call out for the mission to be aborted when Iraqi fighters attack the squadron.
Hot Shots! is a 1991 comedy spoof of Top Gun which stars Charlie Sheen, Cary Elwes, Valeria Golino, Lloyd Bridges, Jon Cryer, Kevin Dunn, Kristy Swanson, and Bill Irwin. It was directed by Jim Abrahams, co-director of Airplane!, and was written by Abrahams and Pat Proft.[2] It was followed by a sequel, Hot Shots! Part Deux in 1993. Both Sheen and Cryer would later costar in the TV series Two and a Half Men, with Ryan Stiles playing a recurring role.
Hot Shots (1991)
Directed by: Jim Abrahams
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Cary Elwes, Valeria Golino, Jon Cryer, Kevin Dunn, Bill Irwin, Lloyd Bridges, William O’Leary, Kristy Swanson, Heidi Swedberg
Screenplay by: Jim Abrahams, Pat Proft
Production Design by: William A. Elliott
Cinematography by: Bill Butler
Film Editing by: Jane Kurson, Eric A. Sears
Costume Design by: Mary Malin
Set Decoration by: Jerie Kelter
Art Direction by: Greg Papalia
Music by: Sylvester Levay
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: July 31, 1991
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