Leonard Part 6 (1987)

Bill Cosby. Oh dear, now there's a story that does not end well. Once considered "America's Dad" his reputation plummeted when historic sexual assault allegations finally caught up with him in 2014 and tarnished his legacy irreparably. But I'm not here to debate as to whether or not he was guilty (look, he probably was...) and I'm not American, or a fan of The Cosby Show, so he was never a fondly remembered part of my childhood or anything like that, so in retrospect he comes to the table here as just another former mega-star who disgraced their own legacy because of their own selfish, horrible, and destructive actions. ON THE SUBJECT of selfish, horrible and destructive actions; In 1987 Cosby watched Rambo and thought it would be a really good idea to make his own movie based around the same idea except he wanted to make it a comedy... with him as the central focus... and he employed a bunch of yes men to take care of the rest of the important details for him. And from this flaming bin fire of a foundation came the critically eviscerated and culturally derided anti-masterpiece: Leonard Part 6, or Leonard Part VI. No. There are no parts 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. That's the joke. Let that lead in just set the scene for the rest of how "funny" this cinematic production is supposed to be. 

After a little bit of nonsense, the movies first opening scene appears to depict a couple of divers using what I can only describe as a trout stylised as a sniffer dog... eating a CIA Agent alive in a swimming pool... No, seriously. After the death of 8 other agents, all involving the use of trained animals, the CIA bring one Leonard Parker (Bill Cosby) out of retirement who's past 5 escapades were so dangerous, footage of them has been confiscated in the interests of national security. Leonard who is currently retired and running his own restaurant has to first deal with an agent named Monroe (?) who appears to want to kill him in order to advance his own career. After a bit of a silly slapstick shootout in the restaurant kitchen, whereby damage caused by the weapons fire appears to aid and assist the chefs in preparing the meals... Leonard ends up killing Monroe by deflecting a bullet from his gun off several kitchen utensils before it hits Monroe in the back of the head, killing him instantly. I... hope this doesn't set the tone for the rest of the movie... Leonard arrives at CIA offices, presumably, where he is briefed on the mission; a Vegetarian lady - no the movie makes a point of highlighting that - named Medusa Johnson and based out of a company masquerading as "International Tuna", has been organising the murders and is apparently hell bent on taking over the world. Because of course she is. However he declines to take it on, citing that he quit the service to reconcile with his wife which as of yet has not happened. But will never happen if he returns to intelligence work. What follows is a scene with Leonards daughter revealing her would-be husband to be a 67 year old man, I ... I don't know if that will have any significance later we'll circle back to it. Meanwhile at the headquarters of International Tuna, Medusa Johnson (Gloria Foster) discovers they are being spied on by another CIA agent and so arranges for him to be murdered by a gang of frogs who... literally hop his car into the bay waters. Leonard puts a call in to his estranged ex-wife to discuss the marriage of their daughter situation and she invites Leonard to dinner which; cue a montage scene of Leonard getting back in shape and picking a right outfit. Arriving for dinner with his former wife, Allison (Pat Colbert) takes the opportunity to basically get her own back on Leonard for cheating on her by pouring wine all over him and pushing the food in his face, clearly signalling that any potential future reconciliation is off the table... er so to speak. Returning to action again as an Agent, there is then a quite painful scene where Leonard visits a trusted Albanian Fortune Teller he has worked with in the past who clearly speaks a complete nonsense language. But bestows Leonard with some ballet shoes and what appears to be something in a ring box that I'm sure will be important later. After getting tooled up, Leonard jumps into his car with a tank turret mounted on the top... and speeds to the International Tuna building where, after a stupid scene where he uses all of his fire power to blow down the doors but is unable to, "thick door." he retorts which if delivered by anybody else would have been funny. He eventually gains access when Medusa just... opens the doors for him. What the fuck am I watching?! We are 42 minutes in by this point and this is just bollocks. Inside Leonard is greeted by "the Vegetarians". Medusa's hired hench-people stylised as different animals and creatures. They proceed to dance around Leonard, stripping him of his weapons and armour with him unable to resist, before Leonard realises he has the ballet shoes in his possession. Donning the shoes, as our off screen narrator explains that Leonard spent 3 years undercover during a mission training in ballet, Leonard uses various over-the-top ballet moves to defeat the Vegetarian gang. After making his way through the rest of the complex, Leonard tracks down the mind control device Medusa is using to control the different kinds of animals and finds it guarded by bees (there is a mention of it being in the "B" room earlier, but that subtle pun was lost on me). He opens the ring box from earlier to reveal a "Queen Bee" inside who successfully diverts the bee drones away and allows Leonard to walk on in and steal it. After returning home with the sphere there are some quite painful scenes with Leonard and his daughter, who appears to be in a play that involves her stripping butt naked on stage for some reason (the nudity is only implied in the movies defence) that frankly I can't be bothered to apply much effort to, but all you need to know is that it ends with Allison being kidnapped and her ransom being the return of the mind control sphere. After retrieving the sphere from CIA HQ, Leonard races to International Tuna but not before sabotaging the sphere and replacing the contents with dishwashing liquid. Along the way, for some reason the Fortune Teller from earlier arrives behind them and uses magic (??) to switch places with Leonard's driver. She gives Leonard a bunch of things that are probably important before disappearing. At International Tuna, Leonard turns up and is immediately captured, with Medusa explaining the contents of the sphere aren't important but it's the additive that makes it work, explaining that she plans to use it to unleash a wave of animals to attack the city. Leonard is locked up alongside Allison in a cell where they are attacked by lobsters, but using some melted butter - bestowed on him by the Fortune Teller lady - Leonard and Allison use the lobsters to break free. After commandeering a horse they burst into the control room and stop Medusa from activating whatever it is that would start the animal uprising. Leonard keeps her hired goons at bay by shaking beef steaks at them - they are Vegetarians so afraid of meat apparently - another present from the Fortune Teller, whilst Allison frees the animals. In the ensuing chaos the building catches fire and things begin to explode randomly with Leonard escaping by jumping on an ostrich and using it to fly him to safety, even though ostriches can't fly. In the closing scenes there is just a black screen with a message written in white text asking you what you are doing with your life. Nah I'm just kidding.

I can't believe I wasted 1 hour 20 minutes of my life on this. I could have done something constructive with my time like peel paint of a wall with my bare hands. Or mowed the lawn with just my teeth. Either one of those chores would have been infinitely more enjoyable than this absolute tripe. I often found myself thinking "Wow. This is really awful." quite alot throughout this movie. Mostly after one scene finished and the next one started. And I am not just taking the gloves off because Cosby is connected to it. No it really was just that bad. It just wasn't funny. Like not even a bit. And the punchline for every scene just felt agonisingly embarrassing. Like watching your own mother or father piss themselves on stage in front of an entire audience.

I'm... I'm going to try and fish for some positives. It was, by the strictest definition, at least a competent movie. In that it told the semblance of a story from start to finish. There was a plot. There was plot developments. There was a conclusion. Fleshing out that rigid structure there was a handful of borderline nonsensical scenes that I think were supposed to convey some sense of comedy, that also went a little way in advancing the plot and developing the story, but I can at least credit the movie with having a definitive structure. 

That is... about where it starts and ends really with the positives! For me at least anyway! I don't like Bill Cosby. In this; he was just horrendously miscast. He wasn't funny. Seeing him subjected to the slapstick stuff just wasn't funny. Maybe it was a bit back then? I don't know. But in retrospect it wasn't funny. You didn't empathize with him. Nor did you feel like you wanted to root for him towards the end. He hadn't really done anything to earn it?! He hadn't really done anything?! But he did not fit this role at all. Not one bit.

And nobody else really comes out of this with a glowing endorsement either. Pat Colbert as Allison was wooden and vanilla as the day is long. I don't even know who played the narrator / Butler but he was basically just a posh British stereotype. Gloria Foster as Medusa was practically anonymous and basically an after-thought: 'we need a villain in this piece. Ok let's do that.' and let's not even go there with the borderline racist Fortune Teller lady. Everybody else was just not that significant enough to even bear thinking about. 

In terms of the actual plot development, it mostly hinges around Leonard lumbering from scene to scene either being humiliated or goofily acting out the secret agent stuff. There was a handful of nonsensical gags that were either not funny or so hamfistedly sandwiched in that they didn't make sense in context until later on in the movie, by which point they weren't funny. I wouldn't go as far as to say I really tried with it, because, well probably didn't. But they were just not funny. And this was the movies central aim: to be funny. And it wasn't.

Productionwise, things were mostly ok, it was shot and edited I think mostly competently enough although the production values did seem to dip a little bit in spots which surprised me. Maybe Bill Cosby was cheapening out. But otherwise the cinematography was fine and the soundtracking was fine which I think played more to the movies detriment than anything else. It showed the movie for what it was: a perfectly financed, competently and professionally produced production which was in stark contrast to what it was actually capturing on video: complete and total underdeveloped nonsense.

There was very little I got from this one. It was by some measure one of the worst movies I've watched for a while and another one that I just wanted to be done. I felt like just turning it off and giving up on it a couple of times. And it's not that it was necessarily bad. Well, err... maybe it was... but it was just not entertaining. Or enjoyable. Or captivating. Not in the slightest. 40 odd minutes in I was like "what am I watching?" because I just couldn't connect with it at all. And by the end I genuinely felt like I had just wasted my evening. 

I found myself mostly mentally comparing it to Austin Powers which, although would come much later than this movie, was similarly a Spy Parody style production that just got everything right, where as this movie just got everything wrong. It stylises itself as a comedy movie but it's about as much fun as a trip to the dentist. And about as enjoyable as a colonoscopy. Zero out of Five.