Rambo can be funny, part time

Stop! or my mom will shoot
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
Written by Blake Snyder, William Osborne and William Davies
Starring Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty
Reviewed by Ulrike Erhardt

I wanted to see Sylvester Stallone making a fool of himself by starring in a comedy, but I was surprised to discover he was capable of satirising himself as a mama's boy.

And there you have the whole plot. Stallone plays Joe Bomowski, a Los Angeles police sergeant whose professional and personal life goes into upheaval with a visit from his mother.

Mom is played by Estelle Getty, famous for her portrayal of Sophia in Golden Girls. She looks like the quintessential Jewish mother and like a hooker with a long past expiry date, thanks to a cute little Yorkshire terrier whom she also has a tough grip on.

Mom either infuriates or charms everyone who crosses her path, leaving a trail of destruction in her desire to do the right thing by her son. Mothers are obviously farcical figures who seem to clean or cook things to death if they are not busy ambitiously pushing their offspring from one mess into another.

But it takes two to tango. Bomowski has difficulties severing the navel cord too. Just as the verbal war between mom and mama's boy approaches a climax, the script writers feel the urge to let Stallone go about wrecking things. And so they forgo the chance to exorcise demons (macho men, or so we are shown, suffer from strong mothers).

Stop! or my mom will shoot fell short of its potential to be funny until the end. Better luck next time, Joe Bomowski, and please change your name if you want to make a sequel of it.

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