Hot Stuff (1979 film)

Hot Stuff is a 1979 American action crime comedy film starring Dom DeLuise, Suzanne Pleshette, Jerry Reed and Ossie Davis. DeLuise also directed the film (the only film where he did so), and the song "Hot Stuff" was written and performed by Reed.

Plot
Miami police detectives Ernie, Louise, Ramon, and Doug (played by DeLuise, Pleshette, Avalos, and Reed), frustrated at their inability to convict the criminals they arrest, decide to set up a sting as a fencing operation to trap criminals in a pawn shop, recording the illegal transactions on the (then) new technology of portable VHS videotape cameras.

With less than helpful support from their captain (Davis), the trio decides to re-sell some of their stolen items to stay in business. Trouble follows as they run afoul of the local mob boss. Doug sees his car destroyed by a bomb (and laments "I just had it washed"), he and the others have a shootout with gun runners at a waterfront condominium construction site, and they ultimately arrest the criminals en masse at a party.

Main cast

 * Dom DeLuise as Ernie Fortunato
 * Suzanne Pleshette as Louise Webster
 * Jerry Reed as Doug von Horne
 * Ossie Davis as Captain John Geiberger
 * Luis Ávalos as Ramon
 * Pat McCormick as Area Mob hitman (man with cigars)
 * Marc Lawrence as Carmine, Mob Boss
 * Sydney Lassick as Hymie
 * Mayor Leonard Haber as Carmine's Hood #3

Production
Mostly filmed in 1978, in South Beach, Miami Beach, in the South of Fifth neighborhood, including Española Way.

Ernie Fortunato's (Dom DeLuise) family is played by Dom DeLuise’s actual wife and children.

The script was co-written by best-selling crime novelist Donald E. Westlake.

Critical reception

 * "...has the form of an extended television sketch that can never be any better or more than its individual parts. More important than anything else, though — and don't underrate the surprising effect of this — "Hot Stuff" is a movie about essentially nice people."

Movie critic Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half out of four stars and said:
 * "It is easy to imagine this material not working even though the movie is also livened up by explosions, shootouts and a wild party. Most of the movie's character-building and most of the laughs happen on one set, and repeat the one situation. But the characters are so well-drawn (not deeply drawn, just well drawn) that we get to like them. DeLuise, directing himself, doesn't indulge himself, and gives a lot of the best lines to his three costars."


 * "DeLuise was a brilliant comic but only within restrained bits. Stretched out to feature-length, he wears on your nerves." — armchaircinema.com