By the end of the 80s, the action genre was primed for parody. The decade gave rise to the muscle-bound action hero, who by the early 90s had already become something of an archetype in wider culture. So, you’d think something like “National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1” would be a comedic hit when it debuted in 1993. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way.
The film stars Emilio Estevez as Sgt. Jack Colt, a parody of Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs from the “Lethal Weapon” films. Samuel L. Jackson plays his reluctant partner, Sgt. Wes Luger, himself a parody of Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh. Together the LAPD duo embark on a mission to solve the murder of their fellow officer Sgt. Billy York (Whoopi Goldberg), which is essentially just an excuse for the film to, er, lampoon the action genre as a whole.
Throughout the movie, the writers take shots at all the big-name action franchises of the time, from Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo films to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempt to out-Stallone his longtime rival with “Commando.” Unfortunately, none of this added up to much in the way of a critical response. “Loaded Weapon 1” has a 21% score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critical consensus accuses the film of being a “tired parody that cycles through its laundry list of references with little comedic verve.” As a result, this is one National Lampoon movie that has been largely forgotten.
But amid the “tired parody” there is one amusing cameo from none other than Bruce Willis himself, who shows up as a version of arguably his most famous character.
Bruce Willis’ cameo might be the best thing in Loaded Weapon
The “Lethal Weapon” movies were already pretty over the top and more than aware of their own excess, which makes parodying them somewhat of a challenge — one that, according to the critics, “Loaded Weapon 1” failed to overcome. But if all you saw was Bruce Willis’ cameo, you might think the movie was at least kind of amusing.
The brief scene sees Willis play an obvious version of his “Die Hard” character, John McClane, who crawls out of the wreckage of his own trailer home after it’s blown up by a goon who mistook it for the home of Emilio Estevez’s Sgt. Jack Colt. Though he’s not referenced by name, the character is wearing the same vest that Willis made famous in his action movie debut back in 1988, with Willis waving a makeshift white flag before emerging from the flames and yelling at his attacker, “What the hell are you doing?”
Though Willis is on-screen for all of 30 seconds, his appearance might well be the best thing about this forgotten action comedy. As per IMDb, the actor even shows up on the cover of an international VHS release, which, judging by the overall reaction to the movie, was at least worth a shot to try to convince people to buy this thing.
