I'm afraid that too much rests on the shoulders of Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty to really make Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot truly gel as a big screen comedy. The film plays more like a long episode of a television situation comedy. I don't believe a small screen TV series was ever contemplated.Stallone is no Rambo in this film, he's just your average working LA cop who is working on a case involving stolen gun trafficking. One fine day his mother from Newark drops in and just takes over, his job and even his love life. That gets a bit complicated too because he's involved in an open secret romance with his immediate superior Lt. Jo Beth Williams.Getty who is ever helpful decided to put Sly's service weapon into the laundry, to be fair he'd stashed it there and she does ruin it. But what are mom's for but to help in crisis. In making an illegal buy of a new and most illegal machine gun, she witnesses a murder of one of the men. It's the case Stallone is working, but we don't know that yet.Best scene is Sly trying to talk potential suicide Nathan Sadler down from a window ledge. Sadler has mommy issues, but when Getty takes over the microphone Sadler does change his mind deciding that Stallone has much bigger problems.Kudos also go to Dennis Burkley the surviving illegal gun dealer who a gang that murdered his brother because the two stole the weapons from them gets kind of adopted by Getty.Funny in spots, but more silly overall.

The interaction between Stallone and Getty was fantastic. The two play their roles to perfection. They were very believable, but more importantly they were hysterical.I would watch this again, just to watch Stallone and Getty play the mom and son role so true to life. They made us cringe. We really felt for Stallone as the son. They made us laugh non stop. Had to give this movie a 6 out of 10, because the story was corny. The plot was predictable and the supporting cast was lacking. This is not a thriller or an intelligent movie. It is a B comedy, it knows that, and it happy to be it.Funny story to share: the reason why Stallone accepted this role was because he was told that Arnold was trying to steal away from him. When he did the film, Arnold told him he spread the rumor because he wanted to see Stallone do a stupid comedy like this.

STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT is a film specifically selected by its star Sylvester Stallone as being his worst-ever movie (although, to be fair, he's made a fair few stinkers since that statement). It's an incredibly corny and dated cop/crime/comedy in which Stallone plays the usual tough guy character who's driven out of his mind by the arrival of his over-protective mother, played by Estelle Getty. When the pair get involved with a gang of gun smugglers, all hell breaks loose...I guess STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT came out at a time when cop spoofs were all over cinema, with the likes of LAST ACTION HERO and NATIONAL LAMPOON'S LOADED WEAPON 1 all filling multiplexes (or not, as the case may be). There's nothing specifically to dislike about this movie, but then there's nothing really to like about it either. The jokes are corny and predictable and the characters feel one-dimensional in their own movie. Even Stallone is on autopilot, able to bring little charm to what is a stock hero role. At the end of the day, a comedy wins or loses depending on how funny it is, and this film just isn't very funny. JoBeth Williams (POLTERGEIST) and Martin Ferrero (JURASSIC PARK) co-star.

When this was released, it got bad reviews. My favorites at the time were Roger Ebert and Dave Kehr. The latter wrote one of the funniest reviews I have ever seen when he gave this film "One star for being in focus." Stallone is a very talented writer and actor, though many of his films are not to my tastes, this being a prime example. Visiting Rome several years ago, this came on one evening and was strangely entrancing. I continued to watch and enjoyed it immensely, not understanding a word of Italian. So that worked for me, to watch as a silent film with wall-to-wall slapstick, vaudevillian comedy. It was a riot!