Dead Heat (1988, R)

When I started watching this movie, I didn't know the title was a pun on zombies.  Honestly, I'm not quite sure if this film is a caricature of several types of movies or just a hilarious example of them.  I'm think it's the caricature though.  It starts off as a buddy cop movie with one clean-cut detective and his partner the meatball musclehead.  I like that despite their personality differences, they do get along as partner cops should.  Their actions piss the heck out of their captain a la Lethal Weapon and if you're in the right mood when you see it, you'll get a big kick out of their flippancy.  They end up investigating a case that involves reanimated criminals and horror(?)/action/comedy(?) stuff ensues.  A lot of the lines are stereotypical film dialogue to the point that it would be trite if taken seriously.

Treat Williams was the only actor that looked familiar to me, though not from any particular role in the past (he played the clean-cut cop), and I'm pretty sure very few people will have heard of this film.  The meatball cop looks like Mark Hamill (Star Wars) on steroids.  It's one of those metatexual self-aware movies (but again, not obnoxiously so, IMHO).  The tone was consistent throughout the film in terms of dark and/or satire humor (but not over the top), and level of action, so I don't think liking any one part will cause you to feel let down by any other part of the film.  This movie has the humor style of a B-horror/comedy (a lot like Army of Darkness), but itself is more of an action/comedy with horror elements.  So if you don't like that sort of of movie (a movie about movies), then this is not for you... but if you like the satire/caricature and a crazy romp, this is a good time.