Spy Hard

Spy Hard follows Dick Steele, a retired secret agent who is pulled back into service when it emerges that General Rancor, the enemy he believed he had dealt with years earlier, is still at large and plotting world domination. To stop him and rescue the captives Rancor is holding, Steele joins forces with Veronique Ukrinsky, a Russian agent whose father designed a crucial component for Rancor's missile. The film is a spoof of the spy genre, sending up the conventions of James Bond-style thrillers along with other familiar movie moments, and it opens with a title song performed by "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Rick Friedberg directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Leslie Nielsen, long associated with this kind of deadpan parody, plays Steele, with Nicollette Sheridan as Veronique, Charles Durning as the agency director, and Andy Griffith as General Rancor. The supporting cast includes Marcia Gay Harden and Barry Bostwick, and the production credits 48 cast members and 83 crew.

Made for a modest 18 million dollars and released in May 1996, the film took in about 27 million dollars worldwide, a return that did not match its cost. Audiences rate it 5.3 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 43,000 votes and 5.4 out of 10 on TMDB from around 796 votes, while its critics' score stands at 3.7 out of 10 from 42 reviews, so critics and audiences alike place it in similar, middling territory.