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Review by Harvey Karten
No Rating Supplied
Since buddy movies, cop movies and cop-buddy movies have
been done to death, Tom Dey, who directs "Showtime," bills this
one as a parody of the genres, but whether you call a lemon an
orange or not, it's still a lemon. "Showtime" is tepid stuff,
making you wonder why De Niro would want to play the part. He
looks uncomfortable throughout perhaps because the pallid
script calls for him to perform as a detective with little
personality, virtually no acting ability, a man who just want to be
left alone to do the job he's been plugging away at for twenty
years.
In fact he looks most troubled performing opposite Eddie
Murphy in the role of a police rookie who wants to be an actor,
De Niro's level of discomfort being perhaps what the part calls
for ((he's not supposed to like the person he's partnered with),
or perhaps because he must step aside to allow Murphy to
overshadow him as a flamboyant personality who collects all the
fan mail to De Niro's sparse pickings.
The odd couple, Detective Mitch Preston (Robert De Niro) and
Rookie Trey Sellars (Eddie Murphy) get paired up in a deal
between a TV network and the L.A. police department. When
Preston, known as a loose gun, or cowboy on the force, shoots
a video camera dead during his investigation of a crime, the
station threatens to sue for $10 million but will drop the suit if
Preston and Sellars would agree to the demands of producer
Chase Renzi (Rene Russo) and director William Shatner
(playing himself) to partner up and allow the TV crew to film
them in action. The laughs, such as they are, come from
Sellars' preening before the camera while for his part Preston
just wants the movie equipment out of his face. Some titters are
evoked from Preston's being kidded about his hobby, which is
making pottery. The comedy turns into some serious
explosions as the duo go after a criminal named Vargas who
totes a gun that's more advanced than anything the U.S. Army
has.
After De Niro's hilarious performance in "Meet the Parents,"
"Showtime" is a comedown and for Murphy, still is a master of
comic timing at age forty-one, a wittier script is sorely needed.
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
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out of 4
