My review was written in March 1988 after watching the film at a Columbus Circle screening room.
"Plain Clothes" is an entertaining variant on the formula teen comedy, with better casting and gags than its forebears. Problem for Paramount will be to get an audience's attention with such familiar-sounding material.
Story hook is identical with DEG's 1987 release starring Jon Cryer, "Hiding Out", in which an adult becomes the fish out of water posing as a student back in high school. This time around it's personable Arliss Howard as a cop who goes undercover (unauthorized since he's been suspended for punching a superior) to find the real killer of a teacher at Adlai Stevenson High School where his brother (Loren Dean) has been arrested as chief suspect.
Howard, adopting the name Nick Springsteen as an old-looking teen (gag line by fellow students: "Are you related?"), has the usual quota of misadventures including a budding romance with the pretty daughter (Alexandra Powers) of the gym teacher (Jackie Gayle) and a crush on the ver4y appealing home room teacher (Suzy Amis, who bears a striking resemblance to the late Elizabeth Hartman).
It's all handled in very tongue-in-cheek fashion by helmer Martha Coolidge, with ample emphasis on black humor. Solution of the mystery, involving a romantically thwarted teacher, is mainly on the back burner.
Howard is a find, carrying the picture with an easy charm that bridges the gap between straight scenes and silly ones. Amis also impresses, but the picture is stolen by a roster of character actors who make the most of briefer assignments: Robert Stack, cast against type as the dimwitted principal; Diane Ladd as his goofball secretary; Seymour Cassel a treat as Howard's cop partner who pretends to be his dad, and Harry Shearer, with no dialog but perfect asw the suspicious "wheezer" who ends up an excellent corpse.
Tech credits for this Seattle-lensed (under the working title "Glory Days") picture are fine, but a blatant continuity/construction error in the final reel is harmful to the total effect, as time unbelievably seems to stand still for everyone waiting for Howard to arrive as King of the Mayfest while he's involved as a cop in nearly a full reel of action.
"Plain Clothes" is an entertaining variant on the formula teen comedy, with better casting and gags than its forebears. Problem for Paramount will be to get an audience's attention with such familiar-sounding material.
Story hook is identical with DEG's 1987 release starring Jon Cryer, "Hiding Out", in which an adult becomes the fish out of water posing as a student back in high school. This time around it's personable Arliss Howard as a cop who goes undercover (unauthorized since he's been suspended for punching a superior) to find the real killer of a teacher at Adlai Stevenson High School where his brother (Loren Dean) has been arrested as chief suspect.
Howard, adopting the name Nick Springsteen as an old-looking teen (gag line by fellow students: "Are you related?"), has the usual quota of misadventures including a budding romance with the pretty daughter (Alexandra Powers) of the gym teacher (Jackie Gayle) and a crush on the ver4y appealing home room teacher (Suzy Amis, who bears a striking resemblance to the late Elizabeth Hartman).
It's all handled in very tongue-in-cheek fashion by helmer Martha Coolidge, with ample emphasis on black humor. Solution of the mystery, involving a romantically thwarted teacher, is mainly on the back burner.
Howard is a find, carrying the picture with an easy charm that bridges the gap between straight scenes and silly ones. Amis also impresses, but the picture is stolen by a roster of character actors who make the most of briefer assignments: Robert Stack, cast against type as the dimwitted principal; Diane Ladd as his goofball secretary; Seymour Cassel a treat as Howard's cop partner who pretends to be his dad, and Harry Shearer, with no dialog but perfect asw the suspicious "wheezer" who ends up an excellent corpse.
Tech credits for this Seattle-lensed (under the working title "Glory Days") picture are fine, but a blatant continuity/construction error in the final reel is harmful to the total effect, as time unbelievably seems to stand still for everyone waiting for Howard to arrive as King of the Mayfest while he's involved as a cop in nearly a full reel of action.