Where to watch Chasers
2 Stars
A hapless Navy sailor is assigned SP duty. The catch: he must escort a beautiful female prisoner on her way to prison for going UA. She in turn will try anything to escape.
I’m stunned a movie like Chasers was made; it’s so unconventional and full of minor digressions that it’s simply amazing Warner Bros. gave it a nation-wide release. Who did they think was going to show up? Chasers wants to be a throwback to the satirical and message pictures of the 1970s. Instead, it’s a mess of whimsy, illogical motivation, lazy writing, and bad casting choices. Tom Berenger is the only one on-screen who seems to understand that he’s in a black comedy.
Erika Eleniak (the playboy model who jumped out of a cake in Under Siege) plays the gorgeous Ensign Toni Johnson, the prisoner that Rock and Eddie must transport to base. However, Toni is determined to escape at every turn. Her frequent attempts are supposed to be comical, but they are sometimes so silly that I thought they were straight from Willy E. Coyote cartoons. Since McNamara and Eleniak are presumably close in age, they apparently have a sexual chemistry, which leads to an awkward sex scene that feels cheap, exploitive, and out-of-place with the rest of the picture.
Chasers has moments when its breezy pleasures are at the surface, but the film mostly lurks from one interlude to the next without much authenticity or realistic internal logic for the characters. In a movie that positions itself as a comedic take on The Last Detail, the writing needs to be sharper and the casting needs to be spot-on; both are sorely lacking.
Directed by: Dennis Hopper
Written by: Joe Batteer, John Rice, Dan Gilroy
Starring: Tom Berenger, Erika Eleniak, William McNamara