MOVIE REVIEW : ‘NIGHT PATROL’: LOWER THAN LOWBROW

If you like jokes about homosexuals, pregnant hookers, dogs with weak bowels, elderly rape victims, black pimps, sex offenders and unconscious winos, then you’ll love “Night Patrol” (citywide), an astoundingly feeble attempt to cash in on the popularity of such recent lowbrow hits as “Police Academy” and “Bachelor Party.”

Not nearly smart enough to be a spoof, not dumb enough to be high camp nor mean-spirited enough to offend nearly every minority group known, “Night Patrol” lurches from one agonizingly bad gag to the next, like a punch-drunk comedian trying to get a laugh from mourners at a funeral home. With four writers sharing screenplay credit, including director Jackie Kong, this film has loads of locker-room authenticity--you get the distinct impression that the whole movie was dreamed up by a bunch of horny junior-high-schoolers during gym.

The plot, such as it is, follows the misadventures of Melvin (Murray Langston), a bumbling rookie cop who moonlights as the Unknown Comic, performing at a local nightclub with a paper bag over his head. Surrounded by various morons, including his oversexed partner (Pat Paulsen), a bubble-blowing psychiatrist (Jack Riley) and a pathological-liar police captain (Billy Barty), Melvin finds himself pursuing (surprise!) a joke-cracking armed robber who stages holdups with a bag over his head.

To make matters worse, Melvin has two women in his life: an angelic police dispatcher (Linda Blair) who loves him as he is, and a sultry vamp (Lori Sutton) who gets turned on only when he’s in his paper-bag disguise.

The lion’s share of the blame for this fiasco must go to co-writer/director Kong, who, if nothing else, sets the women’s-liberation movement back several centuries by portraying her female characters as brainless sex objects. Botching even the simplest comic premise, Kong stoops as low as she can, whether repeatedly having male characters kneed in the groin or staging entire scenes with fake French dialogue and subtitles. (The film even runs obscenity-punctuated outtakes over its final credits.)

Except for Blair, who plays her role with good-natured charm, the rest of the cast walks through on automatic pilot. Paulsen is wan and listless, Riley downright silly, while Sutton (as the blond bombshell) has the rare knack of delivering her lines as if they had been dubbed by a heavily sedated sound technician. At least Langston, as the Unknown Comic (which he actually made famous on “The Gong Show”), gets to wear a disguise for half the film. Too bad Kong didn’t keep all of her extra bags; they would have made a perfect door prize for anyone who had the stomach to stay until the bitter end.

‘NIGHT PATROL’ An RSL Co. Production of a New World Picture. Producer William Osco. Director Jackie Kong. Writers Kong, Osco, Murray Langston, William Levey. Camera Juerg Walthers, Hanania Bear. Editor Kong. Associate producer Jay Kiowai. Production manager Kiowai. Art directors Jay Burkhardt, Bob Danyla. Costume design Terry Roop. With Murray Langston, Linda Blair, Pat Paulsen, Jaye P. Morgan, Jack Riley, Billy Barty, Lori Sutton, Pat Morita.

Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

MPAA-rated: R (those under 17 must be accompanied by parent or adult guardian).