Kindergarten Cop (1990)

"You know, kindergarten is like the ocean. You don't want to turn your back on it."
Street tough LAPD detective John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has been working day and night in his relentless pursuit of putting the well known drug dealer Cullen Crisp (Richard Tyson) behind bars, but with the recent news that he has just lost out on his key witness, the case suddenly takes a dramatic turn, and it means they can not hold onto Crisp for much longer, if no new evidence can be found.
With no time to waste, detective Kimble along with his new partner (Pamela Reed) is sent towards the small town of Astoria, Oregon in hope of locating the former wife of Cullen Crisp, and hopefully get her to cooperate by testifying against him in an open court.
And with little information to go by, beside some old photos, John Kimble is given the task of trying to "blend" in, by going undercover, and that means he must take on his toughest and most dangerous challenge yet, which just happens to be a substitute teacher in the kindergarten.

I love this film. A big childhood favorite of mine, and one of very few Schwarzenegger titles that my mum would let me watch, and where he continues his seemingly endless streak of box office hits, once again teaming up with comedy director Ivan Reitman in a family film where Arnie proved he could be more than just a unstoppable killing machine.
Over time the film has gone onto to become quite the cult-classic, thanks to the incredible amount of memorable quotes, which back in the mid 00s made it into a bunch of hilarious prank calls, and then later on in 2012 it was rumoured that the Criterion Collection would come out with their very own Kindergarten Cop edition, which seemed to confuse and anger a lot of movie snobs, which I thought was comedy gold.

Arnold always seemed to carry with him a natural talent when it comes to comedy and it went well along with his larger-than-life appearance.
Sure a lot of it was probably unintentional but I think he took a lot of critics by surprise with more family oriented pictures like Twins (1988) and Kindergarten Cop, blending in comedy, with a bit of drama but never too much so it would be all over the place.
While Kindergarten starts up like almost an typical Arnold action film, it soon turns into a very well made family film that could easily have turned into a disaster, like some of Sly Stallones or Bruce Willis comedy efforts but it didn't.

The film has a fantastic feel-good atmosphere going, much thanks to the soundtrack by Randy Edelman but also the many beautiful locations either in Astoria or nearby.
Acting wise, I think Arold does one hell of a job, sure we are not talking Oscar material but compared to his more typical action roles it was nice seeing him in a more "dramatic" part, specially the more tender scenes, such as when he encounters a kid with bruises, which is the work of his abusive dad, and then later on the satisfying moment we see Arnie confront the father or when he tells about why he has not seen his son, for many years.

Richard Tyson as Cullen Crisp might not look like much of a threat to a guy like Arnie, but he makes up for that by being a very cunning kind of villain, and in fact one of the more "realistic" bad guys in any Arnold's films, as he has a certain way of dealing with things, specially when not going his way, and also comes along with a very cruel, secret weapon, his own mother. 
The beautiful Penelope Ann Miller has the part as Cullen's ex-wife, and does a fine job, specially when hit with the news that he might be on the lookout for her and their son.
Pamela Reed and Arnold was a pretty solid team, and I thought the scenes with her boyfriend who was working as chef, was very funny, and the part where she tries to fit in as Kimble's austrian sister, Ursula, and they meet up with Joyce and her son at a local restaurant.
Pamela would later on re-unite with Arnie in the dissapointing family comedy, Junior also directed by Reitman.

Believe it or not, but a "sequel", well more like a horrible attempt of a remake was done years later, starring Dolph Lundgren, and it was a truly a awful film.
Anyway, Kindergarten Cop seems to be a bit of a hit or miss with a lot of Arnold fans, as I guess some saw it as a bad sign that he went from bad ass action movies, to doing family films, but for me, I think of the film as a classic Arnie movie, and it lies somewhere between 7,5/10 and 8/10.