User Reviews

Pat Morita, Jay Leno, Chris Sarandon, Tom Noonan and Ernie Hudson star in this 1989 action-comedy. This takes place in Detroit, Michigan where we meet detective, Tony Costas (Leno) who works homicide. We also meet Japanese detective, Fuji Natsuo (Morita) who is sent to Detroit to find a man who has stolen a prototype for a turbo charger. After Costas' ex-partner friend is killed, he investigates and soon works with Natsuo to find his killer and the stolen prototype. Sarandon plays crooked businessman, Philip Madras, Noonan plays his right-hand thug, Scully and Hudson plays Shortcut, a detective who works with Costas. I've always enjoyed this film even though it has some corny moments and Pat and Jay were great together. I think "Rush Hour" kind of bit off this and it's not a bad film I recommend.

I have to rate some of these reviews as 10s because I never laughed harder than even seeing Pat Morita karate kick a moving car windshield. I was very surprised how much they rough housed Morita continually, this guy is no youngin'!

It was great to see the mighty USA in grand auto production and recall how you were treated if you bought a toyota. I imagine the animosity was real between the two countries, especially in Detroit. They even hand a line by their own admission, we had it coming.

The Vette in the opening scene was stunning and super cherried, saweeet ride! I was waiting to see if the car rental lady was going to end up in that Formula One race, that would be hilarious. They only issued a yellow flag for that scene with non-racers on the track, so realistic!

The music score was extremely annoying and sounded so much like Beverly Hills Cop I was rather 'shocked' to find the song list contained primarily nobodies.

The train scene with the non-stop shotgun/rifle/? was very funny for one minute but 10, I almost turned this film off. I was piqued by the size of the famed supercharger and determined you might decrease power with that thing in the way.

High recommend to watch and then read the comments here and also to see Leno try to act with very limited results. The final scene was the icing on this cake of cheese!

Tony Costas (Jay "Men are like this, but women are like this" Leno) is a Detroit Police Detective, as you might expect. Fujitsuka Natsuo (Morita) is a "Detective First Class" in Japan. When his chief, Kitao (Oh), sends him to Detroit to investigate the corporate intrigue behind a very special car part that could revolutionize the auto industry, he immediately thinks of Jay Leno and tells him to find him. So while, initially, according to the back of the VHS box, the two men are "as different as hot dogs and sushi", they eventually learn to work together, despite cultural differences and Jay Leno's annoying presence. An impressive list of excellent names orbits the wacky goings-on, including the great Noonan, Sarandon, Cobb, Hudson, Starr and others. Will Costas and Natsuo get to the bottom of the matter before being killed by the baddies? No matter what, you're - again quoting the box - "guaranteed a lot of action. But you're guaranteed a lot of laughs!" Well, it finally happened. The day you knew was coming finally arrived. The ultimate action star, Jay Leno, has been set loose, has a gun, and is running around Detroit savagely murdering people. Okay, well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but as you can clearly see above, he does indeed have a gun. And he doesn't seem to be afraid to use it. The terms "Jay Leno" and "weaponry" should always be used together, and here they finally have a harmonious home. Naturally thanks to the greatest casting decision of all time. (Or at least since Art Garfunkel had a Short Fuse).

But really, this is your classic 80's buddy cop/action/comedy we've come to be very familiar with, very much in a similar vein to Action Jackson (1988) for the automobile-related intrigue in Detroit, but also Red Heat (1988) for the "wisecracking cop teaming up with a fish out of water from another country" theme. Jay Leno probably only agreed to be in it because the subject matter involves cars. Don't be afraid of his high-pitched squeakings; in actual fact, Collision Course is highly entertaining. It stacks one nutty scenario on top of another for pretty much the entire running time. For an action comedy that's 80's through and through, Collision Course definitively delivers the goods.

It's even fascinating to watch as a time capsule, because it was set in a time when Japan was considered a major threat and rival. And because Jay Leno is a cop who plays by his own rules and occasionally flouts the law himself, and lets fly with some classic casual racism, and goes up to any woman he sees and asks for their "home number", through the wildly PC eyes of 2013, Jay Leno would be seen as a fascist, womanizing racist. But it was all in good fun back then. Plus, at any moment you think he's going to tell the audience it's okay because "crunch all you want, we'll make more." It's a shame Leno gave up his budding career as an action star and chose to be the host of the Jay Leno Show (not The Tonight Show. The Jay Leno Show). What a waste.

Yet more silliness ensues when Pat Morita is on screen and stereotypically "Asian" music plays. You want to scream "we get it, he's Asian!!!". And when asked his name, Natsuo says "Dwayne Johnson", predating The Rock by many years. Also there is a missile gun, fruit cart chases, sax AND funk on the soundtrack, and not just a freeze-frame, a split freeze frame. There's also a top-notch BYC (Black Yelling Chief), played brilliantly by John Hancock, who signs this movie with a huge signature (sorry about that, but it's true). The icing on the cake is an ad after the movie is over, informing us that if we weren't fully entertained, we could send in our "rental receipt" and get a full refund! Now who on God's green earth would do that? They must have been fully confident in the ability of Jay Leno to delight and amuse, even though lawsuits prevented the movie from being released on VHS for about six years (it was shot in 1986 and didn't come out on VHS until 1992. Presumably this was strategically timed for Jay Leno to be crowned victorious in the Late Night Wars of the early 90s. Whether people thought this would help or hurt his chances in said Wars remains unclear).

So for unabashed silliness that's a lot more entertaining than you might think, give Collision Course a try. Also, if you want to know what a "hard PG" looks like, here it is. After all, this may be your only chance to see Jay Leno brutally executing his rivals.

A decade after the godfathers of the buddy cop movie, (Busting - 1974) and (Freebie and the Bean - 1974), some changes had to be done, to refresh the genre, and avoid the bore. So let's play with the ethnic belongingness of one of the cops, to see an all American cop teaming up with: an Afro American in (Running Scared - 1986), an alien from outer space in (Alien Nation - 1988), and why not a Japanese in (Collision Course - 1989)!

While the buddy cop movie mostly has maverick cop, with by-the-book partner, fighting each other and else, through a world of comedy and action, (Collision..) has all of these elements, but its main problem is that it doesn't care much about most of them. Let's see..

The "All American maverick cop": Jay Leno could be a good host, but not a good actor, or - OH YES - an action hero!! His presence is flawed. And to make it worse, his character is deprived of anything special.

The "By-the-book partner": Pat Morita is a great comedian in my viewpoint. What a loss that he didn't make the number of comedies that I thought his talent deserved. I loved apart how he went here to play that beaten, little clumsy, and nice investigator, which is totally unlike the role that brought him the Oscar earlier; the tough, wise, and no-nonsense Mr. Miyagi in (The Karate Kid - 1984). He proved to be one of couple high points (Collision..) hit.

The "Fighting each other and else": In terms of plot wise, things run pretty weird near the end. Suddenly it's all about action scenes agglutinated to each other purely, without much talk. It even ends pretty fast and laconic (the last airport scene) with easy solution for everything. Some explanation could be found in Morita's talk, while being interviewed on The Tonight Show in (1989), by Leno himself, when he said something about how the movie had run out of money on the last day of filming, with key scenes yet to be shot, and no budget left for editing and post-production.

The "Comedy": The comic situations are missed. And the already present ones are so weak and unfunny. So it remained in Pat Morita, a possible chemistry with Leno, and the movie's title; which was clever one for a buddy cop movie, and better than titles like "Rush Hour"!

The "Action": Now this is the other high point that this movie hit. It was abundantly and fairly made. Some sequences were so solid; like the breaking into the criminal's house, then the train gunfight. And that last jump into the car's front glass at the climax was outrageous and unforgettable to classic extent. Director Lewis Teague used to make TV series during the 1960s and the 1970s, like (Vega$) and (Barnaby Jones). In the 1980s, he went to pursue a career in directing cinematic movies. His most famous one I think was (The Jewel of the Nile - 1985). However, in the 1990s, he went back to directing TV series like (Profiler) or (Nash Bridges). Now, I miss him in the movies. Because putting in mind the production crises in (Collision..), he managed to deliver the wished-for entertainment. Although the movie looked eventually naive, but sure in a cool way.

Well, no problem with cool naive entertainment sometimes. And for the love of the 2 characters' irony, and Morita, I have to admit it: I longed for a sequel or - at least - a TV show!

PS: In one scene, the Japanese character was given a sort of a chance to defend his country against American accusations. At the same year, another American cop had a good Japanese cop as a partner in (Black Rain). A heyday for the "good" Japanese characters then, especially after a long age of bad, real bad, stereotypical Japanese characters, rather monsters, on Hollywood's screen. Maybe the reason of that development got something to do with earning objectivity - finally - along the years, or maybe it's related to the fact of investing some Japanese money in Hollywood since the end of the 1980s!

Centered in the downtown and out skirts of Detroit, this comedy I found to be a terrific new comedic duo. 'Noriyuki Pat Morita' is a very funny man, who happens to be a cop from Japan on the trail of an industrial secrets thief, who has stolen a 'proto type' turbo super charger, reluctantly he goes to the United States to follow the thief, after being ordered by his commander. Pat's character collides with 'Jay Leno's' character, a fast talking' but down to business-player type Detroit cop. When they cross paths though, the honorable 'Ways' of Japan meet the all-out old school Detroit police investigative 'Ways'. The two stumble and trip over each other at first, but then develop a 'rythym' that turns into an explosive two layered powerhouse team, that solves the case, cold. After battling a city crime boss for the stolen 'equiptment' and closing the case, these two go from despising each other to being friends and working well together. A little worse for wear and in need of an extended-vacation on top of it all, they manage to come to a victorious closing. I rated this a 9. Lewis's direction makes' this a near perfect comedy. Fun for all ages. I recommend it highly.(***)