Mob hitman Horace Osborn (Robert Davi) lives next door to the Robbersons (Chevy Chase, Dianne Wiest) in the suburbs. Police detectives Jake Stone (Jack Palance) and his young partner are assigned on a stakeout in the family home.

The obvious comedy comes from an odd couple pairing between Chase and Palance. It does not come off well and none of the comedy is funny. Norman acts unnecessarily stupid. It's all stupid. His actions make no sense. It makes the unfunny comedy even more unfunny.

The same year that she demanded that we "don't speak" and denied that she ever played frumps and virgins, she's playing a rather frumpy mother, someone who comes alive in the course of the film and thus steals it. They take a plotline recently utilized in a "Golden Girls" episode and expanded to a barely tolerable full length. It's the story of an innocent household thrust into chaos by the presence of cops who use their home as a stakeout for criminals next door. Fresh off of insinuating that his human waste was bigger than Billy Crystal, Jack Palance managed to get in a few more major parts, and shares billing above the title with Chevy Chase, playing a variation of Clark Griswold, and it's a tired characterization, even though he is very funny when he throws cats.

Her role as Helen St. Claire is now considered one of the great comedy roles of all time, but in an earlier film the same year, she played another Helen (her first name here) and had it been anybody else in the role, it probably would be forgettable. Once again, she's a mother just like she was in "Edward Scissorhands" and "Parenthood" and "Cookie", and once again, she can do no wrong, even with a formula script that doesn't really do her justice. She can take lines that would be hamburger helper and turn them into porterhouse, and thus, she is the best thing in this film and in my opinion the only reason to watch it. Even though this is a formula role for her, she is sensational. It's just too bad she didn't have a different husband to play off of.

Unfortunately, the script is a messy version of a supposed sweet suburb, and if you can get through the restaurant scene where he orders a bagel with cream cheese and they loaded on anyway without sneering, you're a better audience than me. I just found that scene completely unbelievable. The fact that chase doesn't even tell his wife what is going on and she has to find out on her own is also quite disturbing, although the outcome of a scene in the shower between Wiest and David Barry Gray does result in some funny moments even though that scenario has been used several times, ironically on "Golden Girls" as well.

For "The Golden Girls" episode, we had Joseph Campanella and George Clooney, but Palance is completely unlikable. Gray fares a little better, but his characterization proves my point that this was just an extension rip-off of that TV sitcom episode. The three kids of Wiest and Chase are pretty stereotypical, but the youngest who has a vampire fixation does manage to steal a few moments. Robert Davi does make a creepy villain and there is plenty of action in addition to the comedy, but even in 1994, I felt I had seen this many times before and done much better. By this time, Chase's schtick in films was getting rather stale with several films a year over exposing him, and this was obviously just a quick cash grab for him as box office poison set in.

Following the utter failure of his TV show, Chevy Chase began a long stretch of embarrassing roles. First off, he starred in this ridiculous - if cute - story of some cops hiding out with a suburban family to catch a criminal. The whole movie is all about gags; if you like that, then this is the movie for you (I will say that the whole sequence where the cops first meet the family is pretty funny). But if you like really creative humor, then you'll probably want to avoid "Cops and Robbersons". Chase, Jack Palance and Dianne Wiest probably want to downplay their participation in this idiocy. And to think that Michael Ritchie also directed such greats as "The Candidate".