A film is found that features young German officer Kirk von Metz sleeping with Adolf Hitler. Years later, von Metz is running for chancellor of West Germany and arranges for the murder of anyone who has seen the film. The killings take place in the Washington D.C. area, and Metropolitan Police officers MacArthur Stern and Ellis Fielding are sent to investigate the crimes. Ellis suffers from a multiple personality disorder, which is aggravated when he is confronted with violence. This results in several episodes where he blacks out and assumes the personalities of popular culture characters, including Popeye, Captain Kirk and the Road Runner. "Mac," as he's called, and Ellis attempt to track down the film through pornographer Harry "The Hippo" Gutterman, who informs them that to do so they need to get to New York City. They decide to take a train, but first must evade a team of FBI agents led by Bob Smiley, whose orders are to prevent any embarrassment to von Metz by intercepting the film before it reaches the public domain. They all meet up at Washington's Union Station, where Mac and Ellis trick Smiley and his team into boarding the New York-bound train they originally intended to take, while they jump off and hop onto one on the opposite track bound for Cleveland instead. While on board that train, Mac notices another undercover team that has been trailing them, which, as it turns out, is led by Rebecca "Riva" Lowengrin, a Mossad agent assigned to the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C.. After surviving a helicopter attack on the train by Nazi sympathizers, Mac, Ellis and Gutterman jump off a bridge into a river and eventually make their way to New York. Mac finds the film in a locker on one of the upper levels of Grand Central Terminal and, during an exchange of gunfire with more Nazis, throws it to Riva, who has just arrived on the Main Concourse below. It is screened that same evening during a speech that von Metz delivers. Mac, Ellis and Gutterman all suffer gunshot wounds and, as the movie ends, are seen recuperating in the same hospital. Mac jokes to Ellis that he is converting to Judaism that evening in order to move to Israel the next day to join the Mossad, but is uncomfortable about undergoing circumcision.
The film was released on February 9, 1990 and grossed $2,239,830 on its opening weekend, ranking #5 at the box office. Its widest release was 1,214 theaters. It only played in cinemas for two weeks, where it grossed $5,585,154 worldwide. On a budget of $15 million, the film ended up a box office flop.
Critical response
Loose Cannons received universally negative reviews from critics, and has been declared one of the worst films in the early 1990s. It currently has a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 17 reviews. Vincent Canby, in his review for The New York Times, stated: "Mr. Hackman and Mr. Aykroyd deserve much better. They really do. Each gives a thoroughly professional performance that is consistently undercut by the direction of Mr. Clark." Variety stated that "Dan Aykroyd's dexterous multipersonality schtick is the only redeeming feature of this chase-heavy comedy." Hal Hinson commented that "Hackman mostly just stands around watching Aykroyd run through his exertions with the look of a man who has something unspeakable on the sole of his shoe" in his review for The Washington Post. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film a "Two Thumbs Down" vote on At the Movies, and called it "the cop-buddy comedy that hits new lows in an undisputed field." In May 2013, Calgary Police investigated after footage from the film was found in a landfill by a worker, who mistook it for evidence of an actual murder. It was later noticed that Aykroyd was in the frame, and the police contacted his agent who, after some searching, stated that it was a section from this movie. TMZ reported that after the incident Aykroyd said, "The movie should have been left in the landfill where it belongs."
