Written by Jim Kouf
Directed by John Badham

Making a film work against type is a challenge.  The film Stakeout does this by casting Richard Dreyfus and Emilio Estevez as two police officers, but switching the roles I would have expected them to be in.  Here, Estevez is the more settled officer with a wife while Dreyfus is the one who ends up sleeping with the woman they are staking out.  Not only that but Aidan Quinn is also cast a bit against the type he usually portrays as a violent criminal who escapes from prison.

With all that, I would have thought Stakeout would do pretty poorly.  It doesn’t. It actually works quite well as a combination of comedy and drama with a little romance thrown in as well.

Richard “Stick” Montgomery (Quinn) escapes from prison.  He has killed in the past and getting him back behind bars is enough to pull Chris and Bill (Dreyfus and Estevez) off of their assignments for the Seattle police to stake out the home of Stick’s former girlfriend, Maria (portrayed by Madeleine Stowe).

Chris first meets Maria when he poses as a phone repairman to plant a bug in her apartment.  They run into each other at the grocery store and he ends up having dinner with her while Bill watches them.  The attachment grows and Chris eventually sleeps with her.  He realizes that he is about to be discovered in her apartment by the two officers who relieve him and Bill and manages to leave without being seen, but with the recordings on the phone, it would seem he is about to be discovered.  Not to mention that Stick is headed for Maria’s as well.

Stakeout is funny as Dreyfus and Estevez play up the comedy, especially against type.  Bill is frantic to protect his partner even as he knows Chris is screwing up and putting them both in jeopardy.  They also play jokes on the other officers who are part of the stake-out and it would seem they all don’t get along very well.  This is why it’s so important that no one else finds out that Chris is involved with Maria.  Dreyfus seems typical of a guy who is being led by his hormones. He’s coming off of a bad break-up, so the attention from Maria is appreciated and he finds it impossible to do what he knows is right.  It’s funny to watch him reason it out.

There’s action and suspense as well with the peril of Stick’s impending arrival.  Quinn performs admirably in this part which was one of the first I can remember him playing an evil character.

Stakeout is a light-hearted fun film that’s a bit lighter on the action and violence than typical buddy-cop movies.  Part of the charm is that the middle-aged balding cop is the one chasing the girl while the younger one is the voice of reason.  It’s a good date movie or for any time you’d like a quiet night in.