Spies Like Us - Where spies go out into the cold

In Spies Like Us, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd are underwhelming employees of the State Department who are tricked into participating in a spy mission in the Soviet Union. They have no idea their mission is a decoy for the real, fully-trained and highly prized spy team and almost certainly lead to their deaths. They are dropped into Pakistan, talk their way out of a KGB trap, pose as surgeons, lose their one and only patient, escape to the Soviet Union, launch a nuclear weapon at the United States, force the missile to explode in space, and land two beautiful women.

If that doesn't sound like something you'd enjoy, you can go ahead and stop reading this blog because this is my kind of movie.

Directed by John Landis (Blues Brothers, Animal House), Spies Like Us is a throw back to the time when American movie villains were almost always Russian, the KBG couldn't shoot straight, and men in army uniforms couldn't wait to push big red buttons. In essence, this is a more believable and funnier WarGames.

Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd play mid-level government employees caught cheating on some test that would allow them to have better jobs. (The details aren't important.) As a result, they are assigned to a mission in the Soviet Union, though they aren't told specifics. They're thrown out of a plane above Pakistan and immediately surrounded by townspeople with guns. Shockingly, Chevy Chase, playing Chevy Chase in this movie, is unable to charm his way out. Luckily, their contacts come their rescue and they are on the road. Aykroyd realizes they probably aren't American and they run away, the KGB guys firing their guns uselessly in their direction.

They are picked up by another group of locals, and once again, Chevy's charms are lost on them as they are strung up by their ankles and almost killed. Luckily, the UN doctors assume they are the expected surgeons and promptly assign them to perform surgery on the town leader's brother. The brother dies as soon as Aykroyd makes his first incision (horrible luck) and they are once again on the run.

They manage to get to the Soviet Union somehow and stumble upon two of the UN "doctors," who turn out to be the US spy A team. The KGB return, one of the A Team is killed and Chevy is taken prisoner. They rescue him and find a Russian missile, which they are supposed to enter directions into. They overtake the Russian guards, launch the missile, and find out it's going to the US, where the brass in charge were looking to start WWIII. (Ain't that the way it always is?) They all decide the world is going to end and pair off of a few minutes of passion. Then Aykroyd devises a plan to divert the missile, a bit of glasnost ensues, they team up, war averted. The end.

Like most Chevy Chase comedies from the 80s, this one is a mix of intelligent humor, asides, bumbling from the protagonists, and a touch of locker room laughs. In the capable hands of Landis, it all comes together wonderfully. Aykroyd (who co-wrote the movie as well) is of course great with Chevy, who essentially plays the same role he does in every movie. (Think Fletch or National Lampoon Vacation.)

Take the scene in the first act when they are caught cheating. Dan Aykroyd, the straight man, sits next to Chevy, whom he doesn't know yet, and watches him cheat in increasingly inventive ways: He reads notes from the back of an eye patch, then from his cast (fake arm injury), unspools paper from his mouth, and finally writes "What does KGB stand for" on the back of the test and clears his throat to get Aykroyd's attention. (This also gets the attention of the proctor, Frank Oz.) That builds to Chevy standing up, shouting "I can't take the pressure" walking up and down the aisle looking at everyone's papers for answers before collapsing on the ground. Aykroyd says he knows CRP, falls on top of him and they discuss more answers on the floor, with everyone watching. (That's when the surveillance footage cuts off.) It's sublimely silly and performed by two comedians at the height of their game. It's infinitely rewatchable.

I miss the days when movies routinely took shots at the Soviet Union, a threat so immense yet distant that it was fun to laugh off. It's harder to laugh off the far more recent attacks by fundamentalists, attacks which hit closer to home and forever changed our way of life. (But we can bring knives on planes again!)

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. I downgrade it one Patrick Swayze ab, however, for the incompetence of the KGB and the guards at the missile site. I'm not looking for historical accuracy in a John Landis movie, but the Soviets weren't our biggest threat because they couldn't take out Dan Aykroyd.

Spies Like Us: 5 out of 6 Patrick Swayze Abs