Showtime Review

Eddie Murphy hit his high as Donkey in Shrek. But then, considering he couldn't remain just that donkey for the rest of his acting life, the casting directors add insult to the injury by pitching him across the table with DeNiro.

Showtime is one of those flicks that even if it were called 'jujube' or 'curry puff', it wouldn't really be as funny as it set out to be. Now wasn't DeNiro supposed to be one of the hippest guys in Hollywood and Eddie Murphy the funniest of the funnymen? Whatever happened? Looks like someone was desperately trying to get back the fun of Rush Hour (Jackie Chan & Chris Tucker) and ended up one plate short of Sushi and a fortune cookie.

Mitch Preston (Robert DeNiro) is a tough talking dunkin donuts kinda cop content with his job and the endless hours of scouring the streets like a giant road sweeper, while Trey Sellers (Murphy) is a 10k brain attached to a 27GB mouth - the sorts that aliens would have to zap with a stupidity ray, twice. These two guys come together like a sandwich and an ant at a picnic as Trey bungles up Mitch's undercover drug bust.

But looming extra close at the bust is also a camera crew and an inane idea for a reality show on the lines of 'COPS' (bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna doooooo? whatcha gonna do when they come for youuuu?). Considering how little of reality you need to make a reality show, the LAPD laps up the idea, and decides to throw Murphy and DeNiro together into the cauldron in a pitch to clean up its sad PR.

This is when we all get to feast our blinkers on William Shatner (Captain Kirk of Star Trek), who, contrary to popular opinion and demand, hasn't quite as yet been beamed up (shame on you Scotty). There are a couple of quirky moments with Rene Russo as the bumbling producer and Shatner as the director, and just as death is an acquired trait, you go ahead and giggle inanely at the whole bunch of dumbass stuff. But then again, the movie has that certain 'nothing' that makes you actually enjoy the flick.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it, and this is one of those cases. The movie is okay - it doesn't exactly have the inventiveness of Albert Einstein, but it has the whacko quotient of Daffy Duck, and considering that's the league we're all in, it does make for some timepass watching.