Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 8, 2021

Some of the best -- and some of the worst -- of the late 80s and early 90s Comedies took the very good idea of pairing mismatched characters to humorous effect. Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a couple of the best -- Kindergarten Cop and Twins -- and of course Burt Reynolds headlined the less successful Cop and a Half, a film about a cop who finds himself partnered with a young boy. Director Roger Spottiswoode’s (Turner & Hooch, another of the "mismatched partners" genre) Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot pairs muscleman Sylvester Stallone with the diminutive Estelle Getty in what is essentially the geriatric version of Cop and a Half in which a grizzled cop finds himself reluctantly partnered with his visiting elderly mother who is witness to a heinous crime.

Joe (Sylvester Stallone) is a hard-edged cop who thrives on his work, even, and especially, when the bullets are flying. He’s comfortable around the criminal element and has yet to meet a challenge he cannot overcome. That is, until, his mother (Estelle Getty) arrives for a visit. She unwittingly humiliates him at every turn, telling stories of his time in diapers and being an unabashedly overbearing caretaker for her middle-aged son who can certainly fend for himself. When she takes it upon herself to clean his handgun and ruin it in the process, she decides to buy him a replacement. Unfortunately, California has a 15-day "cooling off" period which means she can't get him the weapon he needs, now. Rather than wait the mandatory time, she purchases a weapon out of the back of a van from a couple of shady characters. Soon thereafter, she witnesses a shooting in which one of the men is killed and another barely escapes. Now, she's the key witness to a major crime and, whether he likes it or not, Joe's best, and maybe only, chance to reign in one of the city's most dangerous criminal enterprises.

Much maligned upon its initial release, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot has not improved with age, though to be sure this is hardly the worst of the worst the cinema world has to offer. Maybe misguided, perhaps short sighted, but whatever the problems with it may be the end result is a serviceable film with some humor and a little heart offsetting the action. It is admittedly made of very stale material with little in the way of creative opportunity driving it forward, and perhaps it's the play-it-safe, play-it-predictably structure that leaves fans with a bad taste in the mouth. This is not a creative endeavor but watching it from the perspective of a simple escape with little ambition to be more than that, it's hard to fault the film too much as it is.

The issue is certainly not the casting. Stallone and Getty may be working with flat material but they bring enough over-the-top charm to the parts to carry the film to some level of modest success if only for their mismatched screen statures and personas. They work the material well, playing off one another even if the arcs and angles are predictable and without much thought for purpose or depth and expansion behind them. But, again, it comes back to meeting the movie's demands, which are simple, and its aspirations, which are little. No, this is not a Stanley Kubrick or Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece, but it's a capable entertainer that should pleasantly divert audiences that don't come into it too jaded or with expectations set too high.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is not the worst looking film on Blu-ray – it's not The Freshman and it's certainly not Like Father Like Son -- but the picture nevertheless exhibits some telltale signs of problems that pull it down into the "lesser" stratosphere. The picture appears to be victim of some, though not entirely egregious, noise reduction and subsequent re-sharpening. Facial textures are clearly more pasty and smooth than they are perfectly sharp and natural. There's a sense of boosted definition under the 1080p resolution but this only serves to enhance the obvious smoothing that has been performed. Mercifully, the picture has not been robbed of all its fine detail. Some fair essential textures remain on clothes and police precinct office furnishings, backstreet urban areas, and on close-ups of guns. But the picture is far removed from its true, innate filmic roots. That said, it's certainly very watchable and a far cry from the worst the format has seen. Colors are plentiful and pleasantly bold; there's not a lot of fine-touch tonal nuance at work but the palette does offer a rather pleasing display of bright colors that give the movie some life and punch. Skin tones are a bit pasty and blacks are not perfectly deep, but the full color spectrum certainly supersedes the detailing as the best component the visuals have to offer. The picture holds artifacts from the sharpening process and viewers will note some other scattered issues like ringing and trace edge enhancement as well as the odd spot, splotch, and speckle. This is hardly A-grade material but the image has not been reduced to an unwatchable state, either. Whether one finds the movie proper watchable is another story, but as for its technical visual presentation it could be better and it could be worse.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack may be small caliber but it serves the material well enough. The limited channel selection means no opportunities for surround expansion or subwoofer engagement but the presentation isn't necessarily wanting for anything more. Music is adequately wide and detailed, as are various actions scenes where vehicle crashes, gunshots, and the like present with proportionate depth and detail and spacing along the front. Light atmospherics are of course limited to the front but what's here serves the material well enough to define police stations, busy city exteriors, and the like. Dialogue is clear enough and images nicely to the center area.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot contains no supplemental content. The main menu screen, which features the same image as the Blu-ray case artwork (which differs from the "Retro VHS" slipcover, here displaying the image with Estelle Getty holding the M-60 machine gun), offers only options to play the film and toggle subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot has found its legacy on criticism, much of which may very well be deserved, but chances are if audiences were to step back and just take in the movie at face value, it might suddenly play a smidgen better than it does as an 87-miute punchline or punching bag. The movie is no classic or anything of that nature, but as crude escapist entertainment it's not horrible...is it? Mill Creek's featureless Blu-ray is likewise...not horrible. The picture is less than ideal but it's more than the flotsam and jetsam it could have been. Audio is decent enough. A movie with any kind of legacy, even a bad one, is well worth a place in any home video library. Recommended.