Verdict
Summary
Kino Lorber has just reissued Best Defense onto Blu-ray, and while I can’t recommend the movie itself, it might make a good and very interesting study on how a movie is derailed by reshoots, a bad script, clunky direction, and just about everything that could be wrong about the movie making process.
Plot:
A weapons engineer becomes embroiled in espionage when a solution to the project he’s working on falls into his lap.
Review:
Wylie Cooper (Dudley Moore) is a befuddled worker drone contracted to the U.S. military as an engineer for whatever weapons projects he’s assigned to. Nobody in his division can crack how to make the latest tank design workable, but when he’s at a bar one evening after work he’s approached by a jittery guy (played by Tom Noonan in one scene) who’s being tailed by a KGB agent (David Rasche). The guy slips Cooper a disc, and all of a sudden Cooper’s life changes. On the disc is a solution to perfect the tank design everyone has been trying to master, and Cooper takes credit in the office for the incredible find, launching him into the limelight for the U.S. military, which promotes him, but it also puts him in the crosshairs for the KGB and various other intelligence agencies that target him for assassination for the knowledge he seems to possess. Meanwhile, in intercut scenes we see two years into the future as the tank Cooper worked on is being used in Kuwait, piloted by a screwball (played by Eddie Murphy) who has no idea how to use the tank.
A totally off-the-rails film with two completely separate halves segmented together with conspicuous editing, Best Defense is the result of 1. An unfunny original cut that tested disastrously with test screenings, and 2. A complete overhaul in the script and reshoots, adding in the Eddie Murphy sequences to try to make it funnier. The final result is truly horrendous, which is really astounding considering the talent involved here. Writer / directing team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (American Graffiti, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Howard the Duck) completely strike out with their hodgepodge rescue attempt to make their film palatable for audiences, but there’s just no saving this one. Moore tries with the bad material, but Murphy in his added-in scenes appears to be winging it without a script (I can’t confirm this), making a few amusing jokes, and yet not a single thing about the movie is funny. It’s overly profane (almost shockingly so) throughout, causing me to believe that there wasn’t much of a script to begin with. The one redeeming aspect of the film is the upbeat score by Patrick Williams. Other than that, this one is a turkey, and it doesn’t give me any pleasure to deem it so.
Kino Lorber has just reissued Best Defense onto Blu-ray, and while I can’t recommend the movie itself, it might make a good and very interesting study on how a movie is derailed by reshoots, a bad script, clunky direction, and just about everything that could be wrong about the movie making process. The transfer is really solid in a new HD master from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative, and there’s a new audio commentary by two film historians, and the trailer. A slipcover is also included.
