#209: Showtime

Release Date: March 15th, 2002

Format: Streaming (Tubi)

Written by: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Keith Sharon

Directed by: Tom Dey

1.5 Stars

Showtime is an interesting failure.

The script has a fatal flaw, for one. The premise of the movie is that TV producer Chase Renzi (Rene Russo, bless her heart, is putting effort into this performance) hears about a tough LAPD detective (Robert DeNiro, mailing it in) and decides she wants to make a reality show centered around him. He hates the idea, but she’s sure that all he needs is a funny sidekick partner (Eddie Murphy, doing what he can) and the show is sure to be a hit. 

The problem with this idea is that the script wants us to believe that she is trying to sensationalize a real cop who’s just trying to do his job. But from the very beginning of the movie, the script doesn’t ground the character or the story in reality. DeNiro’s and Murphy’s characters are the very type of generic, archetyped cops that we’ve seen in a thousand buddy cop flicks before: DeNiro is the gruff one, Murphy the loose cannon. So when Russo’s character tries to turn them into heighted screen personalities, it doesn’t work. They already seem fictional. 

Another interesting thing about Showtime is that on paper, you would think it would work. It had the budget ($85 million!) and the stars to be better than it is. DeNiro and Murphy both have certified classics in the buddy cop genre (DeNiro with Midnight Run, Murphy with 48 Hours), but they can’t save this. 

It’s a flawed, failure of a movie. An interesting failure, but a failure nonetheless.