My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 35 - Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
(1992; Universal Pictures)

Roger Ebert said it best when he said “This is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.”  I greatly respect Mr. Ebert and here I completely agree with him; 100 percent!  Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is the title that comes from an amazingly unfunny line in this epically unfunny load that was released at a point in Sylvester Stallone’s career where I, honestly, think he was just desperate.  Keep in mind, I hated this movie MORE than Cop and a Half!  That should tell you something.

The paper-thin plot involves a cop named Joe (Stallone) who gets a visit from his meddling mother who enters his life and begins to turn everything upside down.  She shows his baby pictures to his precinct, he interferes with his love-life, she breaks the law a few times, and ends up in danger.  For fun!

Estelle Getty plays Tutti (Joe’s mother) and while she can be funny, the material here is predicable, weak and is really just miserable.  Stallone still moans and slurs every line as he rolls his head and gives a bemoaning “mooooooom!” to emphasize his embarrassment.  Actually, I like to think he’s more embarrassed by this film rather than his character’s mother.  I don’t really know what was going on with action stars in the 90’s but there was a trend there where I think they all felt like they had to emasculate themselves for our amusement.  Bruce Willis had North, Hulk Hogan had Mr. Nanny, and Schwarzenegger had, well, almost everything.  I just don’t get it.