Jim Abrahams

Apparently, the one way to tell if a movie is slapstick is if the title ends in an exclamation point. Abrahams was the third of the trio who directed Airplane!, Top Secret!, and Ruthless People. Abrahams went on to write David Zucker’s successful Naked Gun movies and then wrote and directed some more slapstick on his own. It’s really hard to tell if he or Zucker is more responsible for the good slapstick.

Hot Shots!: Top Gun parody is okay. Charlie Sheen is decent but not great at slapstick. Lloyd Bridges and Cary Elwes are a bit better at it. I didn’t remember Ryan Stiles being in these movies. This movie came out in 1991, around the time he started working on the British version of Whose Line. I also didn’t realize Jon Cryer was here as well.

Hot Shots! Part Deux: Rambo parody is a little funnier than the first movie, but still pretty uneven. A lot of the same cast from the first movie, plus Rowan Atkinson.

Airplane!: See David Zucker

Other Jim Abrahams Movies You May Have Seen

Top Secret!
Ruthless People
Big Business
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael
First Do No Harm
Mafia!

One thought on “Jim Abrahams”

  1. I remembered Jon Cryer but I really don’t remember anything else. I loved the Hot Shots movies as a kid but that doesn’t really prove anything, as slapstick is pretty easy for kids to get. I heard Mafia! was one of the worst slapstick movies ever, but never saw it.

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