THE PROBLEM with "Showtime" is that everyone's working so hard to be funny, laughing isn't the first thing on your mind. Mainly, you want them to relax.
Tackling the easy target of the media's tacky opportunism, "Showtime" is built around the oh-so-ticklish notion that Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro would be just hilarious together as buddies in a reality TV show.
A grizzled detective (Robert De Niro) and a showbiz-happy patrolman (Eddie Murphy) wind up as stars of a reality television show.
(Warner Brothers)
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Occasionally, they are hilarious. But "Showtime" is so pleased with its own spoofy conceit it stays in annoyingly self-amused, predictable mode. There isn't a narrative twist we don't see coming. And it's only the natural, improvisational abilities of the lead performers that give the movie any potency.
Poor old Rene Russo. Classy as she is, she's forced into a thanklessly supporting role as the ratings-obsessed TV show producer who follows these two wacky guys around.
De Niro is Mitch Preston, a detective in central Los Angeles who's got the usual detective problems: a destroyed relationship with a woman, a loner, doesn't need a partner, blah, blah, blah. Murphy is Trey Sellars, a showboating rookie cop whose real dream is to make it as a professional actor.
When Trey sees Mitch sneak into a TV shop after hours, he doesn't know it's for a drug bust. Calling a television news camera crew, Trey "arrests" Mitch and botches the veteran's operation. The bad guys get away. In anger, Mitch shoots at the cameraman and makes headlines. His reckless reaction causes a public relations headache for his department with the TV station.
Enter powerful TV producer Chase Renzi (Russo), who convinces Mitch's boss that the network will overlook the incident if Mitch agrees to become the star of a cop-reality show. Mitch will need a partner, of course.
Mitch hates the idea. Trey loves it. But, this will shock you, eventually they become buddies. And over the course of the movie, they get closer to busting a mysterious operator who has introduced a killer weapon on the street and – aaah, let's just skip this stuff.
In this satire-within-a-satire, as conceived by director Tom Dey and screenwriters Keith Sharon, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, we're put in the position of laughing condescendingly at a TV station that would force Mitch and Trey to make fools of themselves for good ratings. But we're also supposed to be entertained by the very same thing. I guess the joke's – ha ha – on us. Or were the filmmakers even thinking that subversively?
Let's end here with what is funny about the movie: Murphy sure has his moments, such as trying to get a hoodlum to squeal by pretending he (Trey) is the host of a cable TV show for the unjustly imprisoned. And throughout, De Niro's glares and scowls at his narcissistic TV show buddy are priceless. At least Mitch is displaying the perfect attitude for this movie: utter disdain.
SHOWTIME (PG-13, 92 minutes) – Contains obscenity, violence and drug content. Area theaters.
