Kuffs (1992)

You know you're in for it the second Christian Slater cocks an eyebrow at the camera and starts talking directly to the audience. Playing an aimless young man who becomes a San Francisco Patrol Service officer, Slater doesn't have anything earth-shattering to say (''Sure have to make some serious choices in life, don't you?''), but his rambling confessions are simply meant to be an exercise in postteen ''attitude.''

Kuffs is a washout — not to mention a terrible title (it sounds like something you'd call your dog). The movie spends its entire running time trying to convince you it's something other than a cheesy heap of cop-thriller clichés. Here, the clichés are camouflaged — shamelessly — in window dressing from assorted '80s hits. There's Slater's Ferris Bueller , monologues. There are the Risky Business dance scenes and the 48 HRS. buddy-fistfight scenes. There's the bouncy Harold Faltermeyer synth-pop soundtrack, a minor-key knockoff of his music from Beverly Hills Cop. There's even an oversize canine lifted from the 1989 Tom Hanks comedy, Turner & Hooch.

Slater, with his heartthrob smirk, has obviously read (and believed) one too many reviews hailing him as the junior-league Jack Nicholson. Yes, his voice carries echoes of joker Jack's overdeliberate croak. But Slater would do well to realize that it was the emotion behind the rasp-the anger and giddy daring-that made Nicholson a star. Attitude used to be something you earned instead of just tried on like a baseball cap. D+

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