The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid (4 Stars)

The town of Newnan in Georgia is in UFO fever. Everyone thinks he's seen aliens, or at least alien spaceships, but no two eyewitnesses give the same description. The only person who isn't caught up in the mania is the town's sheriff, played by Bud Spencer. The credits list his character as Sheriff Scott Hall, but he isn't named in the film, at least not in the dubbed German version that I watched today.

The irony is that it's the sheriff who makes the close encounter of the third kind. He meets someone who looks like a normal young boy, but he's from outer space. He accidentally beamed down while he was playing, because he pushed the wrong button. It happens. Children can do all sorts of things when they're not paying attention.

The sheriff is a practical person who's slow to believe in aliens, until the boy, whose name is H7-25, offers proof. He carries a photon cannon with him that can do almost anything. It can make horses talk English, and it can make fish jump out of the water into the sheriff's arms. The sheriff looks after H7-25, treating him like a son, but others are less noble. When a devious army captain sees the photon cannon in operation, he wants it for himself, thinking he can use it to conquer the world.

You might recognise H7-25. He's played by Cary Guffey, who appeared in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

This is a hilarious comedy. What I like about Bud Spencer's films is the ridiculous fight scenes, and there are two big fight scenes in "The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid". He's joined by Joe Bugner, a Hungarian boxer, who can fight almost as amusingly as Bud himself.

The film isn't currently available in English, but you can buy it in Italian or German.