It’s been a little while since I’ve seen a parody but I’m always up for this kind of a film. A well written parody will absolutely go a long way because when you understand the gags and see how the film pulls them off it can really be a blast. I would say that by and large this film really succeeds at it too. It probably ends up front loading most of the best gags into the first half but ultimately it’s a film I would recommend all the way through. There is also a good amount of replay value to be found here.

The main character here is a detective named Lou who is always in over his head. The guy’s not very good at his job and just barely manages to hang in there. This time he is in a particularly tough spot though as he is framed for the murder of his partner. He’s the main suspect as it was common knowledge that he had been cheating with the partner’s girl and she isn’t doing a whole lot to try and prove his innocence. She even shows up with the cops to his door on multiple occasions. Lou needs to put some distance between all of them and quick. He has some leads including old flames and very sketchy underworld figures. Will they be enough to help him crack this case once and for all?

Naturally as a parody this film never really takes it self seriously and you shouldn’t either. You’re here more for the laughs and smiles than the actual mystery. Right from the opening scene they set the tone on this as everyone has just been murdered yet they were all in odd poses and never broke formation even after the bullet hit them. That is impressive to be sure but also really crazy. All of the conversations tend to start getting nonsensical after a while which is part of the point.

One of the better scenes is when the heroine calls Lou up but openly allows the cops to listen in on the conversation. The film even pokes fun at how the hero always has a bunch of heroines after him as he gets involved with 3 during the course of this film and they all end up at his place at the same time. It takes a lot of agility and quick thinking to keep them all from meeting up with each other. Lou is ironically quick witted when it comes to situations like this as opposed to the actual case.

Although the case would be difficult for anyone to solve. There are always more and more twists here as more and more players jump into the action. Also you have to consider that even the best of detectives would start to run into trouble when every character is lying through their teeth and half of them make absolutely no sense. Honestly after the film is over you’ll have a hard time keeping track of everything as well. It almost feels like the characters’ stories are changing as the film goes on although that might just be my imagination. It would be a nice extra detail if that was the case though.

The main thing to keep in mind is just that the characters are trying to get some kind of special object the whole time and you’ve also got a war going on in the background. As long as you have all that context then the rest is easy. You’re bound to be laughing at quite a few of the scenes here and the pacing is good so the jokes don’t tend to overstay their welcome. Not every gag will land for you of course but in a film like this there are always a bunch of other jokes to pick up the slack for the ones that did not do so well.

This film just never runs out of jokes and that’s a good thing because it’s important for a comedy film to just keep plunging ahead without missing a beat. The writing is good which is also important and the story is engaging. As I said earlier my only issue to an extent is that they used all the best material in the first half. The second half had a tendency to just not have as many all star jokes the whole time. It was still funny but the first half is absolutely what put it on the map. That’s regrettable to an extent because the ending is always what people remember so you want to end really well.

If there’s anything the film is lacking it’s that we could have had a good rival to Lou. Someone who is super competent perhaps but somehow always gets foiled. That could have been a nice contrast to Lou because in the end none of the supporting characters were particularly memorable. They all just sort of fade off into the distance by the end and while that’s fine since the focus is on the lead, having one more really distinctive character would be good. In the end I’d say that the main police officer was the second best character as is. I liked how calm he was while munching on his snacks the whole time.

Overall, The Cheap Detective is definitely a very good film. I was super close to even giving it one more star but ultimately I would say a 7 is fair. It’s got a lot of replay value and a whole lot of great moments all throughout but in the end I would say it loses just enough steam not to make the jump to the next level. Either way I definitely recommend checking this film out. The more detective films you’ve seen over the years, the more you will get out of this one since it really does a thorough job of destroying the normal tropes.

Overall 7/10