Two totally incompetent applicants, Emmett Fitzhume and Austin Millbarge, are chosen from a CIA recruitment program. They are parachuted into Pakistan and eventually end up in Afghanistan, chased by the Russians, where they learn they are being used as decoys to draw out the Sovet defenses. Two real spies are sent in. Their mission is to Hijack a soviet Missile launcher, launch the Soviet missile and test the new US orbital defence laser. The missile is fired and while heading for an American City, the laser system misses it's target. The contingency plan for this scenario, as set out by the Pentagon Nuts who planned it from deep within a secret underground bunker, is to let the 3rd World War happen anyway.
AMAZON.COM REVIEWS FOR SPIES LIKE US (1985): Yet another bad movie in a lengthy stringof losers for all three of the principals involved here: director JohnLandis and stars Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. Chase and Aykroyd play apair of bumbling would-be CIA agents who are spotted cheating on theentrance exam. So the CIA decides to use them as bait in a mission toflummox the Russians. Lots of pointless slapstick and mugging, butLandis hasn't made a genuinely funny film since TradingPlaces. Aykroyd and Chase seem smug and self-satisfied (don't theyalways?), as though they can rest forever on laurels earned during the1975 season of Saturday Night Live. Look for a gaggle of filmdirectors (Terry Gilliam, Joel Coen, Costa-Gavras) in cameo roles:that's the closest this film comes to cleverness.--MarshallFine