The Set Up:

How do You Make ANOTHER Cop Comedy? You make Fun of the Rest! We all remember Beverly Hills Cop (and sequels) and the humor of Eddie Murphy we all grew to love. Sure he has a wide range of talent, but don't you miss his Beverly Hills moments??? I know I did! So we needed another one! However, this time instead of being the main cop, lets make him the quirky sidekick! Not wacked-out quirky, still a good cop, but still the sidekick type. Ok, so we need a main cop then. The main cop has to be the opposite of our quirky Eddie Murphy, and probably the kind of guy that's the hard ball serious cop who doesn't like playing games and you really wouldn't want to be in an interrogation room alone with. I know! Arnold Schwarzenegger!!!! Hmm, too young, we need someone older with a big chip the size of Nebraska on his shoulder.....I KNOW how about Robert De Niro!?!? He worked very well opposite a quirky character such as Billy Crystal in Analyze this! How about opposite Eddie Murphy!? Perfect! Now all we need is a plot!

Plot:

First off I want you to know that I don't give anything away in my reviews that would spoil the movie, so don't worry about reading this and having the movie ruined for you! So the good cop bad cop set up has been over done, the cop out for vengeance who's partner just got shot is WAY overdone, and the whole reality TV idea should be swept up from its ashes and buried in a deep dark hole. Yeah yeah, you may like reality shows, but they are not my favorite. Of course the most popular cop reality show is "COPS." So why not make fun of every single cop movie and cop show and cop reality show ever created???? Sounds good to me! This movie does just that. Eddie Murphy's character is Trey Sellars, a cop trying to make detective, but not exactly detective material and spends most of his time telling reporters to stay behind the pretty yellow tape. He fancies himself an actor and spends some of his off hours auditioning for anything he can find, but as he's not very talented he doesn't exactly get the good parts if anything at all. Robert De Niro, on the other hand, is our tough-guy cop, Mitch Preston, who has been a detective for a while and is good at it! A little mistake places him in a position of being at the mercy of a big Hollywood production company. Rene Russo is Chase Renzi, a producer looking for a hit show, and she pitches the idea to the production company of a reality cop show with our tough-guy De Niro as the star, and to turn off the heat of a possible lawsuit by that production company, the police department decides to give the production company free reign of De Niro and the entire precinct to make a new reality cop show. (The fact that the department just turns everything over to the production company and lets them waltz all over crime scenes and redecorate whatever they feel like and place cameras everywhere was really stretching things, but if you take this movie seriously then you will never enjoy it.) Of course a cop needs a partner and when Eddie Murphy hears about this he makes it a point to prove to Russo that HE is the man for the job. Of course our dear De Niro doesn't want any part of it, but he's bound and gagged by his superiors and has to go along with all of it (Still not buying it? Neither did I, but you have to forgive and move on). Meanwhile he's trying to solve the token crime of the movie and catch the mastermind criminal. (What's a cop movie without a really big bad guy?)

The irony of the movie is that in trying to make a "reality" cop show, Russo and her partners work very hard to remold De Niro and Murphy into the Hollywood image of a copy that of course goes against the idea of showing reality, but we all know reality shows aren't very real anyways, right? So with cameras on hand, and Eddie Murphy humor (and De Niro's underrated, yet hysterically funny humor of his own) abounding, we are set for a great movie!

Keep Your Eyes Open!

Did you know that Robert De Niro has an adopted daughter? I didn't. I was very interested to find out she has a rather large role in this movie as Rene Russo's assistant! There's also a great cameo of one of Hollywood's best OVERactors and I'll leave that one for your discovery. :)

Director's Corner:

Surprisingly this wild and wacky multimillion dollar movie is only the SECOND big directoral project of Tom Dey's. His first directoral work in Hollywood was Shanghai Noon, a very funny work with two other unlikely characters, Jackie Chan as the traditional warrior from China and Owen Wilson as the rowdy cowboy. I think this director is off and running and would highly recommend you keep your eye on him!

Writer's Corner:

Just as Tom Dey is new to the big leagues, writer Jorge Saralegui is responsible for the story of Showtime and it's the only movie in his writing credits, though it's the fourth movie in his producing credits. Interesting enough three of those four movies are in theatres now! He's responsible for helping to produce Showtime of course, but also Queen of the Damned, and The Time Machine! (Number four was Red Planet). The men actually responsible for the screenplay for Showtime are Keith Sharon, Alfred Gough, and Miles Millar. Keith only has Showtime to his name (a good movie to have!) However it's very interesting that both Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have practically all the same credits to their names and must be quite a pair! They worked with Tom Dey on Shanghai Noon and were some of the minds behind Lethal Weapon 4 and episodes of Smallville amongst others. We may not have seasoned veterans on this movie, but fresh ones are great! I'd like to see what the writing duo come up with for Shanghai Knights, a possible sequel to Shanghai Noon with the same actors chasing down Jack the Ripper! Wouldn't that be fun! (I hope.)

Overall:

I think this will be a very funny addition to the Eddie Murphy line up. Unfortunately I never heard about it until my father suggested we go see it. Unless I've been living in a hole, it seems to have been way under-advertised and because of that mistake, it may not do very well in the box office. I fear too many people will miss this movie. Sure it's not a blockbuster masterpiece, but it's fun and works well to help you get your mind off the rest of your day! I admit it's not very realistic, and some of the stuff in the movie will be VERY obviously impossible, but at the same time I didn't see any cheap suspense building tricks and I appreciate that. Let the movie carry itself. Of course the suspense that WAS there wasn't very strong, but it's a comedy and all's forgiven. Some of it reminded me a lot of Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero movie with the ways they spoofed cop movies. Of course there's the Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop influence and appeal for the audience amongst many others, but I think it's at least enjoyable and worth relaxing in the theatre or curled up on your couch with when it comes out on video.

Thanks for reading, and comments are always welcome and appreciated! :)

Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12