''Best Defense'' is a 1984 American

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

starring

Dudley Moore Dudley Stuart John Moore CBE (19 April 193527 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer. Moore first came to prominence in the UK as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He was one of the four writ ...

and Eddie Murphy. The original music score was composed by Patrick Williams. It was released by Paramount Pictures.

Plot

The movie takes place as two parallel plots separated by a couple of years: In 1982, Wylie Cooper (Moore) is an engineer developing a targeting system on a

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...

for the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

. In 1984, Murphy is US Army Lt. T.M. Landry, an American tank commander sent to

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

to demonstrate the "XM-10 Annihilator," America's latest

main battle tank A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank, is a tank that fills the role of armor-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more powerful engines, better suspension sys ...

, which is equipped with Cooper's system. Because of the tank's poor design and shoddy construction, Landry and his crew are barely able to control or navigate the XM-10 before it leaves the proving grounds and wanders into a combat zone during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Cooper and Landry never directly interact during the film, but the plot shows how the decisions made by Cooper affect Landry's tank. Cooper, an engineer for a troubled

defense contractor The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and se ...

, is in charge of designing the "DYP-gyro," a gyroscope for the army's new tank. The company's future hinges on the success of the project. Cooper's gyro fails a crucial test, dooming the company. Downtrodden, Cooper later crosses paths with another engineer named Frank Holtzman (Noonan) who has also designed a DYP-gyro. Holtzman, fearful of what will happen in his meeting with Jeff (Rasche), a deep-cover KGB agent, secretly hides the plans in Cooper's briefcase. After Holtzman is murdered, Cooper discovers the plans. Cooper's co-worker and best friend Steve Loparino (Dzundza) later puts Cooper's name on the plans, and when the "new" gyro works, Cooper is hailed for saving the company. In 1984, Landry's tank comes under fire from Iraqi jets, leading Landry to plead that he does not belong in this war, shouting "I'm from

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

!" at the attacking planes. Back in 1982, Cooper is contacted by Jeff who tries to obtain the DYP plans. The

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

, knowing that Cooper took credit for somebody else's work, forces him to act as bait for Jeff in a set-up operation. The set-up nearly fails - Jeff is killed during a gun battle, and Cooper himself is shot. Realizing his mortality while being put on an ambulance, Cooper confesses to Clair (Shaver), an attractive co-worker, that he stole the DYP. This triggers an angry response from Clair and also from his wife Laura (Capshaw) who, arriving on the scene, realizes that Cooper has been cheating on her. Surviving the bullet, Cooper receives even worse news from a co-worker: the DYP-gyro he claimed credit for will not work, because it will cause overheating in the WAM, another critical component, crippling the tank's fire control and, in a combat situation, dooming the tank. The film reaches its climax in a sequence weaving between 1982 when a more conscientious Cooper, having recovered, confronts his employers about the flaws in the DYP, while in 1984, Landry attempts to fire the main gun while under attack by an Iraqi gunship. As had been predicted, the DYP causes failure in the WAM, suggesting that Wylie's protest was ignored. Instead, the camera cuts to the innards and shows that the DYP has been redesigned according to an idea that Cooper had in 1982 while fixing one of his son's toys. The redesign works, enabling the tank's air defense rockets to launch and destroy the Iraqi gunship. The film ends with Cooper and Landry as heroes in their respective jobs.

Cast

as Wylie Cooper * Eddie Murphy as Lieutenant T.M. Landry *

Kate Capshaw Kathleen Sue Spielberg (''née'' Nail; born November 3, 1953), known professionally as Kate Capshaw, is an American retired actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Willie Scott, an American nightclub singer and performer in ''Indiana Jon ...

as Laura Cooper *

George Dzundza George Dzundza ( ; born July 19, 1945) is an American television and film actor. Early life and education Dzundza was born in Rosenheim, Germany, to a Ukrainian-Jewish father, Roman Dzundza, originally from Kalush, Ukraine, and a Polish-Jewish m ...

as Steve Loparino *

Helen Shaver Helen Shaver (born February 24, 1951) is a Canadian actress and film and television director. She has received Emmy and Saturn Award nominations, among other honours. Early life Shaver was born and raised, with five sisters, in St. Thomas, Ont ...

as Clair Lewis * Mark Arnott as Harvey Brank *

Peter Michael Goetz Peter Michael Goetz (born December 10, 1941) is an American actor. Early life and education Goetz was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Esther L. and Irving A. Goetz, a construction engineer.Tom Noonan Tom Noonan (born April 12, 1951) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter, best known for his roles as Francis Dolarhyde in '' Manhunter'' (1986), Frankenstein's Monster in ''The Monster Squad'' (1987), Cain in '' RoboCop 2'' (1990), T ...

as Frank Holtzman *

David Rasche David Rasche ( ; born August 7, 1944) is an American theater, film and television actor who is best known for his portrayal of the title character in the 1980s satirical police sitcom ''Sledge Hammer!'' Since then he has often played characters ...

as Jeff the KGB Agent *

Paul Comi Paul Domingo Comi (February 11, 1932 – August 26, 2016) was an American film and television actor. Biography Paul Comi was born 1932 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Comi grew up in North Quincy, Massachusetts and joined the United States Army a ...

as Chief Agent *

John Hostetter John Hostetter (October 6, 1946 – September 2, 2016) was an American actor and visual artist. He played John, the stage manager on the fictional FYI newsmagazine, on the CBS sitcom ''Murphy Brown'' starring Candice Bergen; he appeared in 65 of ...

as Quirk, Dynatechincs

Production

The film did not originally feature Eddie Murphy's character, and was solely a Dudley Moore film. The film's preview screenings were received poorly, and the studio suggested filming a role for Eddie Murphy, who was at the peak of his popularity. Murphy's part was almost completely unconnected from the rest of the film, and his character never even comes into contact with any of the main cast. There had been a scene filmed during the re-shoots which featured Moore and Murphy's characters meeting, but it was cut from the film. Additionally, several other scenes that were important to the original plot were cut in order to fit the newly shot scenes with Murphy into the film, thus contributing to the film's poor reception and reputation as a "meandering mess."

Reception

The movie received negative reviews from critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

the film has a weighted average score of 29 out of 100, based on eight critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". It opened strong at #2 behind ''

Ghostbusters ''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, thr ...

'' with $7.8 million but quickly lost steam, mostly due to poor word-of-mouth, and grossed a disappointing $19.2 million. It was nominated for a

Stinkers Bad Movie Awards The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards (formerly known as the ''Hastings Bad Cinema Society'') was a Los Angeles-based group of film buffs and film critics devoted to honoring the worst films of the year. The society was founded by Mike Lancaster and Ray ...

for Worst Picture, losing to '' Dune''. When Murphy hosted ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock. ...

'' about five months after the film was released, he admitted in his opening monologue that he knew the film was awful and did it for the money: "After I did '' 48 Hours'' and ''

Trading Places ''Trading Places'' is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis, with a screenplay by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod. Starring Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, and Jamie Lee Curtis, the ...

'', all these scripts started coming from everywhere, and I picked up a script called ''Best Defense''. There’s a movie that sucked real bad! At first, I wasn’t going to do it because I read the script, and I felt like I was an actor at first. But the money they gave me to do ''Best Defense'', y’all would have done ''Best Defense'' too, OK? ... I was like, 'What?! How dare you give me a script like this! Oh, that much money? Let’s go!' ''Best Defense'' turned out to be the worst movie ever done in the history of anything, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t that hot no more. So, I called up the producer of ''Saturday Night Live'', and I go, 'Um, you still got my dressin’ room?'"

References

External links