The chemistry that director Robert Altman created in "M*A*S*H" between Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland as two boisterous Korean War surgeons wasn't replicated by "The Empire Strikes Back" helmer Irvin Kershner with the same spontaneity in "S*P*Y*S*. A campy send-up of worldwide espionage thrillers, this lame-brained, low-brow spy saga unfolds quickly with an explosion before it lays its buffoonish humor on with a trowel. Sadly, this breezy, 87-minute comedy neither entertains nor distinguishes itself in the long line of post-007 spy spoofs. Happily, Kershner never lets the nonsensical action slow down, but the script never develops much sympathy about the fate of our idiotic protagonists. Gould and Sutherland respectively are cast as bungling CIA spies named Griff and Bruland in this outing that opens in an outdoor Parisian "pissoir" where our protagonists are nearly blown to bits by accident. One of their own, a clueless British agent, Hessler (Shane Rimmer of "The Spy Who Loved Me"), got his orders mixed up. Mind you, this doesn't qualify as a James Bond level spoof because our heroes aren't equipped with exotic gadgets to bail them out of any conceivable tight spot they encounter. The main villain in this uninspired comedy of errors is Martinson (Joss Ackland of "The Black Windmill") who repeatedly clashes with our heroes about their shenanigans. Meanwhile, Kershner and his scenarists were clearly grasping to ridicule the genre as well as conjure up amusing laughs. Basically, little about "S*P*Y*S* is remotely memorable except for the whirlwind momentum with which this romp unwinds. Kershner and company look like they thought they knew what they were doing. The international cast is above reproach, and some of the scenes are hilarious, but the overall effect is one of abject absurdity. The scene at Martinson's wedding exemplifies slapstick at its craziest, while the scene with Gould searching for a microdot in dog feces is ridiculous. Altogether, this espionage potboiler never generates much suspense, though Gould and Sutherland look like they were enjoying themselves.
