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Charlie Hodge tells us about Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy in SHOWTIME!!!
Hey folks, Harry here with our buddy Charlie Hodge and his look at SHOWTIME. Tom Dey's follow up flick to SHANGHAI NOON starring Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy... Problem is the script has been pretty weak according to most reports... However, due to the fact they have months and months of time before the film will be released some time in 2002. Of course this guy's review is confusing to me. I love 48 HOURS to death. Really like RUSH HOUR and can't stand TANGO AND CASH which he seems to have some sort of affinity for. Anyway here ya go...
Hey there, Harry. I have sent you screening reviews in the past (A Knight's
Tale, Life as a House) and I've got another one for you. Tonight I saw the
very first test screening for one of Warner Brothers' tent pole releases for
next summer: the action-comedy Showtime starring Eddie Murphy and Robert
DeNiro by the director and writers of Shanghai Noon. It was of rough print
with temporary titles and some unfinished effects, but overall felt like a
completed movie. The basic plot is this: Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy are
both Los Angeles police officers. DeNiro plays the typical "loose cannon"
no-nonsense detective, while Murphy plays a bumbling showboat patrolman who
is more interested in pursuing an acting career than in being a cop. The two
are put together to star in a reality-based television show about cops with
Rene Russo as the show's producer.
Overall, this is a fair to mediocre movie. The comedic elements for the most
part work, the action elements do not. DeNiro and Murphy have good chemistry
together and there are some genuinely amusing moments between the two. That
being said, the humor in this film feels recycled. Its like watching a great
episode of The Simpsons for a 24th time, or listening to a great comedy album
over and over. Its still funny; its just doesn't feel fresh. The humor is all
based on that Lethal Weapon polar-opposites buddy-cop shtick we've all seen
ad nauseum. But of course, when that shtick is performed by Robert DeNiro and
Eddie Murphy, it can't help but work at least some of the time. The action
sequences and whole villain story line were absolutely recycled
paint-by-numbers action movie fare. And often bad to the point of being
ridiculous. This movie would have worked so much better if the action element
was left out and it played as a straight-ahead comedy.
The performances in general were competent but nothing special. Murphy was
the outlandish goofball, DeNiro was the stoic hard-ass as straight man, and
Rene Russo, alas, while looking mighty fine had very little to do. While
watching Eddie Murphy's antics on the screen and laughing more often than not
at them I couldn't help but think of the Eddie of old. The 48 Hours Eddie.
The Beverly Hills Cop Eddie. Back when Eddie was funny and cool. Somehow in
the last fifteen or twenty years his comedy has devolved into this safe and
silly slapstick that is once again on display in Showtime. Don't get me
wrong, I think Eddie Murphy is a tremendously gifted comedic actor, but now
he just seems to try too hard in a Jim Carrey kind of way. And DeNiro is
funny once again in yet another send-up of his image, but that joke has just
about been mined for all its worth and is beginning to wear thin.
So to place this movie on the Buddy-Cop-Movie-Spectrum, its five places
behind Lethal Weapon, three places ahead of Tango and Cash (which is that
rare movie, like music by Loverboy, that is so bad it actually comes full
circle and becomes good), and nineteen places ahead of Rush Hour (which ranks
just behind a poke in the eye with a shrimp fork).
Call me Charlie Hodge.
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Bring back some respectability to that franchise! BHC 3 was a terrible movie! Taggert needs to be back, as well!
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How miscast is Eddie Murphy as a youngish cop. The guy is well and truly too old to do this role. Will they bust any TS hookers?
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what you gonna do with all the ca$h? SMOKE HASH, and then we thrash, and you know the rest mothafuckrs.
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First of all, SHOWTIME is supposed to be a parody of reality-based cop shows. So, naturally, it should feel recycled. Secondly, he thinks it's 19 times better than RUSH HOUR, a decent flick, which means SHOWTIME should be better than "fair-to-mediocre." Thirdly, he can't seem to decide whether TANGO AND CASH is loathesome crap or lovable crap. What's up with this nut?
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I was at a lunch a week ago that featured some key NY "cultural" leaders speaking about the impact of 9/11. Jane Rosenthal, one of the founders of DeNiro's Tribeca Films, was there and spoke about how, for them, it had impacted this film most of all. The film was tested on 9/9 and did great. Audiences loved the action in particular. On 9/12 it was re-tested and did very poorly. The studio made a decision to change the movie from an "Action" film with humor to a "Comedy" film with action. She was optimistic that it would work. I haven't seen the movie yet and can't argue any of the points made here. However if it does seem at all disjointed, it could be a direct result.
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Since there's nothing going on in the comics world today at AICN, I might as well ramble about this story. DeNiro and Murphy, huh? Murphy's gone down hill since Coming to America. DeNiro has been phoning in his performances since Goodfellas. I think it is just plain sad that actors just lose steam after a few stellar roles. I guess fame does that to a guy. Sounds like an interesting flick though. Nothing new. We get to see DeNiro all gruff n' stuff and Eddie's cocky mouth will surely be in overdrive. Some insane villain will be introduced to force them to work together like Jeremy Irons or David Morse. Hilarity will ensue, I'm sure. I won't be counting the days for this one, but I will set aside a special night to rent it. Best buddy cop movie ever? Why one must remember The Hard Way with James Woods and Michael J. Fox. It was bloody, funny, and action packed. Best of the best when every flick out there was a bizarre pairing of cop and dog, black cop/white cop or variation of the two. On the buddy cop horizon: A mad candy maker is out for blood and only a by-the- book peanut butter cop and a chocolate loose cannon detective can stop him, if they don't kill each other first. Dum, dum, DUMB!
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I was at a lunch last week where some of New York
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for the repost. It said "error - repost message." my bad.
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First of all I don't really know why such a big deal is being made about a half-serious off-the-cuff remark I made about Tango and Cash. Tango and Cash is a terribly written, poorly executed film. Tango and Cash is god-awful. Which is what makes it so damn enjoyable to me. Tango and Cash is the Plan 9 From Outerspace of buddy-cop films. So cheesy and stupid it becomes entertaining.
And as for Rush Hour, well I'm sorry, but I hated that movie. I thought Chris Tucker was funny for about 10 minutes 6 years ago. He is a third-rate Eddie Murphy clone and his constant mugging and grating voice were more than I could take for the duration of a movie. Now others may disagree with me and thats fine. You are entitled to your opinion as am I to mine. Buts lets not pretend that Rush Hour being a good movie is a foregone conclusion. My Buddy-Cop-Movie-Spectrum wasn't intended to be taken very seriously. And I kind of figured it was obvious since "a poke in the eye with a shrimp fork" in actuality is not a buddy-cop film. Everyone knows it was a short lived series on Fox. The Spectrum was just there to give readers an idea of how I felt about other buddy-cop films to give my feelings about Showtime some context. To recap: I really like Lethal Weapon, I think Tango and Cash is cheesy and stupid (thereby making it entertaining), I did not like Rush Hour, and I thought Showtime was mediocre. If this makes me "retarded" or "a nut" so be it.
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I'm just wondering if the reviewer is a fan of Austin's Dudley and Bob show, or is actually Charlie Hodge from the show.
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he's totally lost his comedic genius! i'm so sick of dumb unfunny movies like dr doolittle. i don't think i ever want to see another eddie murphy movie. he's just not funny anymore...AT ALL.
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