SYNOPSICS
Showtime (2002) is a English movie. Tom Dey has directed this movie. Robert De Niro,Eddie Murphy,Rene Russo,Rachael Harris are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2002. Showtime (2002) is considered one of the best Action,Comedy,Crime movie in India and around the world.
LAPD Detective Sergeant Mitch Preston cares only about doing his job and nailing crooks. LAPD Patrol Officer Trey Sellars joined the force as a day job until his acting career took off. During an undercover drug buy Mitch was working that Trey botched by calling in for backup and drawing media attention, Mitch's partner is shot with a very exotic 12-gauge automatic weapon; Mitch then shoots the video camera out of the hands of a reporter filming the action when the cameraman refused to shut it down. Faced with a $10 million lawsuit, the department agrees to let producer Chase Renzi film Mitch's investigation for a new reality TV show, and constantly tries to make everything more "viewer friendly" by changing everything about Mitch's life to fit the stereotypical view of police officers--and partners him with Trey.
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Showtime (2002) Reviews
Funny Movie!
I don't care what some of the reviews said, this movie was funny. The thing with this film is that you can't expect anything else except to be entertained. This is not some intellectual comedy, this is a clever popcorn movie. The three main cast members are great and work very well with each other. Shatner is a standout in the supporting cast as himself, a former TV cop, brought in by Russo's character to coach the cops on how to be "TV cops." Those are by far the funniest scenes. If you want to be entertained and just sit back for a laugh, then watch this movie.
A fun film, and it even has Robert De Niro
I cannot understand why so many people did not like this film. Robert De Niro was on top of his game, delivering his lines with such aplomb, one has to believe this is his everyday demeanor. Granted, the film seemed to take on many buddy-film conventions while trying to make fun of the concept, it goes without saying this film was genuinely funny. From the police dog, to the fact Eddie Murphy didn't annoy the heck out of me, this film is a real keeper. Rene Russo also evened out the rest of the cast perfectly, establishing her role so it does not interfere with the budding relationship between De Niro and Murphy.
A decent show by two well intentioned leads
Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy star in Showtime as a couple of cops- a quiet, efficient Dirty Harry-like cop and a cop who is deep down an actor, respecively, who are brought together by an accident and forced to take part in a cop-buddy reality TV show for a hungry for ratings producer (Rene Russo). For the first two acts, it delivers a good time in parodying old cop/buddy movie cliches and shows how De Niro and Murphy have some intelligent chemistry in a comedy, but the third act dips by leaving the parody and becoming what it's making fun of. In all, a conventional and surely enjoyable escape on a weekend day. B+
Unfunny
SHOWTIME is supposedly a spoof of reality TV. It is about a pair of mismatched cops are made to join forces in order to participate in a reality TV show. The problem is that, whilst it is supposedly a spoof, it actually follows the conventions so closely that it just comes off as a rather dull buddy cop flick. This interesting angle on a familiar genre is lamentably under used, descending into a cameo by William Shatner full of poor jokes about T.J. HOOKER. Like THE LAST ACTION HERO, it actually metamorphasises into the very thing it is mocking. Unlike that film it isn't entertaining. Robert De Niro looks tired and old, clearly in it for the cash. Eddie Murphy continues to be the most annoying man on film. Rene Russo gives it her best shot but is let down by weak characterisation and a lack of anything to do. The film takes over half its running time just to get the two cops set up, leaving them very little time in the latter half. To keep the running time down the investigation is made absurdly easy. The baddie is utterly generic, as is the McGuffin and the stakes are non-existent. The screenplay must take a lot of the criticism for this, being poorly paced, characterised and unfunny. A good car chase and a single good stunt involving a flood in a penthouse apartment fail to redeem the film. A poor effort.
All together, kind of bad but hey, pretty funny
I put down this vehicle from Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy, and Murphy in particular the first time but having seen it again, recently, I can see that it does have some very funny bits. This is by no means to say that this is the greatest buddy comedy of all time, but really what can you do to the already exhausted subgenre? What director, Tom Dey, has tried to do is make it a satire of the clichés of buddy comedy and the media. Early in the movie the executive of a cable network asks: "How is this different from Cops?", when Chase Renzi is pitching the idea of a reality show dealing with De Niro's character, Mitch Preston (hilariously boring name by the way). That's when I saw it in a new light that I hadn't previously noticed. The idea is to show all the elements of the buddy comedy and put a twist on them. De Niro's reluctance to star in the show and to partner up with Murphy is right out of every cop film you can think of. You can say that De Niro is actually playing himself asking: "Why would I do another movie playing a cop?" Chase Renzi is portrayed to be a Hollywood phony but if you look at her opening scene again, she is merely doing it to save her job. She somehow sees the ridiculousness of what she is doing but she wants to succeed despite that. One line says it all: "Who doesn't want to be on TV?" Maybe this is reading too much into what is essentially a lightweight film, merely set to entertain, but it does give it a little spin that I hadn't noticed before. As for Murphy. You got to applaud him for looking this ridiculous. Trey wants to be a star so bad that he is willing to sell out everything he comes in contact with. Murphy was a big star and maybe it struck a nerve that it is all so fleeting. The plot with the gun is of course pretty boring. The action sequences are nothing special, except the end which required a lot of effort both from cast and crew. One thing that I noticed about the villain is that he is dressed like an 80's pop star. George Michael comes to mind and that adds to the whole media spin. So, I trashed it the first time around but what the heck; if you are gonna do this, why not point out how ridiculous it really is and De Niro and Murphy took a big chance doing this.