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Uninventive plot handcuffs cop caper
[Photos: Warner Bros]
Drena De Niro, left, Rene Russo, Eddie Murphy, William Shatner and Robert De Niro try to poke fun at the cop story genre in Showtime. |
By PHILIP BOOTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 14, 2002
The big names are there, but the comic drama Showtime doesn't rise much above the police shows at which it pokes fun.
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Wink-wink references to cop movies and television shows are sprinkled liberally throughout Showtime, an underachieving comic drama matching an impressive cast with a one-joke script.
There's a jibe at Miami Vice. There's a shot at Diagnosis: Murder and a knock on Magnum, P.I. Isn't that William Shatner, aka Mr. Priceline, being a good sport again, playing himself and funning with his T.J. Hooker role? Lethal Weapon gets a nudge, as do the Beverly Hills Cop movies. And the entire concept -- working police officers become stars of a reality television series -- is intended as a goof on the likes of television's Cops.
Those elements might make excellent comic grist in the hands of the right filmmakers. But not here: Showtime, directed with minimum zest and maximum conventionality by Tom Dey (Shanghai Noon), isn't much of an improvement over the programs being mocked.
The plot is an uninspired wrinkle on all the police-story conventions we've come to know and tolerate. Mitch Preston, the longtime Los Angeles police detective played by Robert De Niro, is hard-working, serious, crusty and stubborn. Preston, divorced, is a bit of a slob, partial to greasy-spoon joints and full of antipathy for the media. "Get a real job," he barks at a videographer. Preston's bite is even worse: He shoots the camera.
Eddie Murphy is young beat cop Trey Sellars, less interested in stopping crime than in jump-starting a career in acting. He's a spiffy dresser, fast driver and inveterate jokester, and his stylish open-air apartment is littered with movie memorabilia, including a prominently placed poster of Serpico.
The two meet when the rookie bungles the veteran's dangerous undercover operation. They become a team, thanks to a little extortion: The videographer's network, incensed over the damage to its equipment, will drop its $10-million suit against the LAPD only if Preston agrees to star in an on-the-job reality series.
William Shatner plays himself and makes fun of his T.J. Hooker role, while Rene Russo plays Chase Renzi, a hyper television producer who comes up with the idea for a reality police series.
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Why will the show work? "He's sexy, he's volatile, he's a modern-day cowboy," says Chase Renzi (Rene Russo), the hyper, glitzy television producer responsible for brainstorming the idea of the series. Her concept includes broadcast-friendly makeovers of Preston's home and office, a video confessional booth for moments of quiet reflection, and carefully placed cop cams and crook cams.
Sellars "auditions" for the job of Preston's partner by staging the interception of a faux purse snatching, and he comes up with the catch phrase -- "It's showtime!" -- that helps turn the program into a hit.
De Niro, as he has done recently (Meet the Parents, Analyze This), mostly parodies his old scary image, at one point delivering a stream of tough-guy dialogue -- "Go ahead, make my day," "You feel lucky, punk?" -- directly to the camera. Murphy, as usual, is always on, but not always given the best material.
One exception occurs when Sellars masquerades as the oily host of a fictitious TV show, Framed, in an effort to get a gullible criminal to name his boss, Euro crime kingpin and nightclub owner Vargas (Pedro Damian). It's the film's second-funniest sequence, after a cameo by Johnny Cochran.
Robert De Niro plays a serious, stubborn Los Angeles police detective who dislikes the media, insulting a cameraman at one point and then shooting the camera.
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The new partners, clearly mismatched, nevertheless learn much from each other, as dictated by the conventions of the genre. They join efforts to defeat the wily, heavily accented Vargas. It's a subplot that offers a good excuse for assorted car crashes, shootouts, fiery explosions and one long high-speed chase. Isn't that what it's all about?
Showtime
- Grade: C-plus
- Director: Tom Dey
- Cast: Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, Rene Russo, Frankie R. Faison, William Shatner, Drena De Niro, Pedro Damian
- Screenplay: Keith Sharon, Alfred Gough, Miles Millar
- Rating: PG-13; profanity, violence
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