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Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol is a 1987 American comedy film. It is the fourth installment in the Police Academy franchise. It was released on April 3, 1987, and is the sequel to Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986).
A group of Police Academy graduates are sent to train a group of newly recruited civilian officers. The original Police Academy cast reprise their roles in the film. Capt. Thaddeus Harris (G. W. Bailey), not seen since the first installment, returns as the film's nemesis. In Police Academy 2 and 3, Capt./Commandant Ernie Mauser (played by Art Metrano) filled that role, but Metrano asked to be replaced for the remainder of the series after filming the third film. This was the last Police Academy film to feature Steve Guttenberg as Carey Mahoney. This film also stars a young David Spade in his feature film debut, as well as featuring a brief appearance from pro skateboarder Tony Hawk as Spade's double in a skateboarding scene. The film was a commercial success, but was panned by film critics. It was followed by Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988).
Contents
Plot
Commandant Eric Lassard decides the police force is overworked and understaffed, so he comes up with the idea of recruiting civilian volunteers to work side by side with his officers in a program called "Citizens On Patrol" (COP).
Carey Mahoney and his friends Moses Hightower, Larvell Jones, Eugene Tackleberry, Zed McGlunk, Carl Sweetchuck, Laverne Hooks, and Debbie Callahan are in charge of training the civilians. The civilians include the enormous Tommy "House" Conklin (who Hightower used to babysit), gung-ho senior citizen Lois Feldman, Tackleberry's own father-in-law Mr. Kirkland, and skateboarding delinquents Kyle Rumford and Arnie Lewis. The latter pair were caught by Captain Thaddeus Harris, and the judge was about to throw the book at them until Mahoney speaks to the judge to let Arnie and Kyle join the COP program as alternative punishment. The judge agrees, and the boys are joined by their attorney, Milt Butterworth.
Believing "the concept of citizens doing police work is asinine", Harris is determined to see the COP program fail and take over Lassard's job at the academy. When Lassard leaves on an overseas conference, Harris, and his right-hand man Lt. Carl Proctor, are put in charge of the academy and Harris immediately plots to make the COP volunteers quit and leave police work to officers.
The volunteers, however, do well in their training. Mrs. Feldman excels in firing Tackleberry's .44 Magnum, and they bond amicably (she reminds him of his mother). In training in water safety and drowning victim rescue, Zed rescues a cadet and gains a love interest, a reporter/photographer Laura, who has come to view Lassard's COP program and becomes attracted to Zed. Unfortunately, Harris ruins the moment, insulting them both and inspiring Zed to replace Harris' deodorant with mace, which burns his armpits. Despite pranks pulled on him during training, Harris is still determined to make the Citizens on Patrol program fail.
Jones learns that volunteers House, Kyle and Arnie feel ready to go out and arrest criminals, so he, Mahoney, Hightower, and Tackleberry prank the boys, locking them in a prisoner transport van with Hightower, who is posing as a Voodoo practitioner who reanimates Tackleberry's "dead" brother, as a Jason Voorhees-esque maniac with a chainsaw to make them take training more seriously. Later, after Harris yells at Zed again, calling him a disgrace, Laura comforts him, saying she thinks he is perfect.
Cast
Staff at The Academy
Steve Guttenberg as Sergeant Carey Mahoney
Bubba Smith as Sergeant Moses Hightower
Michael Winslow as Sergeant Larvell Jones
David Graf as Sergeant Eugene Tackleberry
Tim Kazurinsky as Officer Carl Sweetchuck
Leslie Easterbrook as Lieutenant Debbie Callahan
Marion Ramsey as Sergeant Laverne Hooks
George Gaynes as Commandant Eric Lassard
George R. Robertson as Commissioner Henry Hurst
Bobcat Goldthwait as Officer Zed McGlunk
G. W. Bailey as Captain Thaddeus Harris
Lance Kinsey as Lieutenant Carl Proctor
Brian Tochi as Officer Tomoko "Elvis" Nogata
Colleen Camp as Sergeant Kathleen Kirkland-Tackleberry
Andrew Paris as Officer Bud Kirkland
C.O.P. Program
Derek McGrath as Milt Butterworth
Scott Thomson as Sergeant Chad Copeland
Billie Bird as Mrs. Lois Feldman
David Spade as Kyle Rumford
Brian Backer as Arnie Lewis
Tab Thacker as Tommy "House" Conklin
Corinne Bohrer as Laura
Music
Motown Records issued a soundtrack album on record and cassette; until 2013, this was the only film of the series to have a soundtrack album released.
"Rock the House" - Darryl Duncan (5:29)
"It's Time to Move" - S.O.S. Band (3:19)
"Dancin' Up a Storm" - Stacy Lattisaw (3:29)
"Let's Go to Heaven in My Car" - Brian Wilson (3:30)
"The High Flyers (Police Academy Theme - Montage)" - Robert Folk (2:04)
"Citizens on Patrol" - Michael Winslow and the L.A. Dream Team (4:16)
"Rescue Me" - Family Dream (4:54)
"I Like My Body" - Chico DeBarge (3:56)
"Winning Streak" - Garry Glenn (3:12)
"Shoot for the Top" - Southern Pacific (2:46)
Reception
Box office
The film debuted at number one in the United States weekend box office and would go on to gross a total of $28,061,343. It grossed $76,819,000 worldwide.
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 0% of 20 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 2.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Utterly, completely, thoroughly and astonishingly unfunny, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol sends a once-innocuous franchise plummeting to agonizing new depths." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 26 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B−.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "The Police Academy series seems to shoot for an ever younger crowd. The optimum viewer for Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol would be a 10-year-old boy. Even better, it would be a whole pack of them. That's not to say the film isn't funny; it means only that the sense of humor being addressed is very specific. Stay away if drawing room farce is what you're after."
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "What’s so amazing about the Police Academy movies is that they keep being made even though they stopped being funny after the hilarious original. We’re now up to No. 4, and the most you can say for it is that it is the teeniest bit better, not quite so crass as the last two. [...] There might have been some comic possibilities in this, but writer Gene Quintano strays widely from the premise to toss out, hit-and-miss fashion, a series of pranks involving much slapstick humor and culminating in some aerial tomfoolery involving hot-air balloons and a pair of ancient biplanes. Unfortunately, the film never takes flight itself."
The film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song for the song "Let's Go to Heaven in My Car" at the 8th Golden Raspberry Awards. It was the only film in the entire Police Academy film series to receive a Golden Raspberry Award nomination of any sort.
Sequel
A sequel titled Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach, was released in 1988.