No matter what character he played, the late John Candy’s warmth radiated from the screen and captured the hearts and minds of audiences worldwide. His iconic performances in the John Hughes vehicles Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and Uncle Buck cemented the SCTV comedian’s legacy in cinema history. However, before Candy’s successful collaboration with Hughes, Hollywood struggled to recognize his comedic genius. Such was the case when Candy entered the popular ‘80s action comedy scene with Armed and Dangerous.

Released in 1986, Armed and Dangerous followed the ‘80s cop movie trend, similar to Beverly Hills Cop and Running Scared, by casting stand-up comedians as badge-wielding detectives fighting big-city crime with plenty of bullets and humor. The Harold Ramis-penned script, directed by Mark L. Lester (Commando), was initially intended as a vehicle for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, with John Carpenter attached to direct before Candy and fellow SCTV alum Eugene Levy were brought in. Largely panned by critics with a 9% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes, Armed and Dangerous firmly went against Candy’s winning persona by forcing the comedian’s awkward attempt at being an action comedy star.

What Is ‘Armed and Dangerous’ About?

Following an incident of dirty detectives stealing TVs, LAPD cop Frank Dooley (Candy) gets kicked off the force after the detectives frame him for the crime. Meanwhile, nebish defense attorney Norman Kane (Levy) is forced by a judge to quit his job in exchange for a lengthy sentence for his vicious client, who threatens his life. Both Dooley and Kane soon find themselves working for a private security company where they become partners.

Upon graduating from training, Dooley and Kane get robbed by masked assailants in a pharmaceutical warehouse they are assigned to guard. They get reassigned to a toxic waste dump by their captain (Kenneth McMillan), only to learn of a similar robbery that led to another pair of guards being assigned to a troubled fate. With help from the captain’s daughter, Maggie (Meg Ryan), Dooley and Kane uncover a pension fund scheme run by the union reps (Robert Loggia, Jonathan Banks, and Brion James).

Before Armed and Dangerous, Candy and Levy’s brand of humor was well-defined on SCTV. Their sketches gave them a wide range of characters to play with, whether it was Candy’s larger-than-life everymen or Levy’s uptight men of power. The script for Armed and Dangerous rarely ever plays to the stars’ strengths as comedians. The closest that the film ever gets to capturing Candy and Levy’s small-screen magic is when they have to sneak out of the sex shop with Dooley in drag and Levy as a gay cruiser in leather. The rest of the film, outside this gag, does not allow Candy and Levy to make their one-note characters unique beyond the description on the page.

‘Armed and Dangerous’ Forces John Candy to Go Against His Winning Persona

Image via Columbia Pictures

The buddy action comedies of the era that succeeded were the ones that knew how to find a consistent tone. Beverly Hills Cop, Running Scared, and 48 HRS. took a serious approach to the thriller elements while adding humor to add texture within the narrative. Director Lester was an odd choice to handle Armed and Dangerous due to his lack of experience in comedy, but he had plenty of knowledge of executing action, as evidenced by Commando and Showdown in Little Tokyo. Armed and Dangerous’s big climax, involving Levy and Ryan in an armored truck chased by the villains, is well-crafted in the stuntwork. But between Candy struggling to save a pet stuck in a tree and a loud trucker cowboy (Steve Railsback) smashing up traffic, the comedy element of the film plays to the low-brow slapstick gags featured in the Police Academy franchise, lacking any real edge and constantly forcing the jokes in situations rather than finding them naturally.

Armed and Dangerous struggles to succeed as a buddy comedy despite Candy and Levy’s best efforts to make the material work. Levy is largely miscast in an awkward romance with Ryan, just three years shy of her breakout performance in When Harry Met Sally. As for Candy, the film tries to force the comedian to play more aggressively than his usual mix of Canadian blue-collar wit and charm that made him so lovable in Splash just two years earlier. Spending much of the film taking charge of the action and racing to stop the armored car heist in the finale, it’s as if the film wants to poke fun at the image of Candy trying his hardest to be Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, never allowing the comedian to fully embrace making his keystone cop character something original and fitting to his signature persona.

Candy would later tell the L.A. Times that the underperformance of Armed and Dangerous was the result of being restrained creatively to make Dooley his own creation on screen. Fortunately, it was not long before the Hughes-directed pictures, as well as Cool Runnings, allowed the comedian to slip comfortably into roles that captured his full essence as a man.

Armed and Dangerous is streaming on Tubi in the US.

Release Date

August 15, 1986

Runtime

88 minutes

Director

Mark L. Lester

Producers

James Keach

Cast

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  Robert Loggia

  Michael Carlino

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  Kenneth McMillan

  Captain Clarence O’Connell