Showtime (2002)
Directed by Tom Dey
Written by Keith Sharon
Starring Eddie Murphy, Robert DeNiro, Rene Russo, Kadeem Hardison, Nestor Serrano
Release Date March 15th, 2002
Published March 14th, 2002
The buddy cop movie is a dying genre. For every Rush Hour and Lethal Weapon there are any number of odd couple mismatched partners. One partner is the gruff vet, the other is the crazy wildman. They fly around big cities fighting drug dealers and terrorists, blowing up city blocks and killing any number of people with no consequence. The latest example of this mindless stupidity is the Deniro-Murphy mismatched buddy cop movie Showtime.
Robert Deniro is the gruff but lovable detective who breaks all the rules, and always gets his man. Deniro's most recent bust cost the city of Los Angeles millions of dollars. The only way to pay the debt is to team up with a pretty TV producer (Rene Russo) for a Cops-style reality TV show. Of course Deniro, while he's a good cop, isn't very friendly. The producer decides he needs a wacky partner. Enter Eddie Murphy as a beat cop who wants to be an actor. Eddie sees the TV show as a way to further his acting career. So now we have our gruff but lovable lead and wacky off the wall partner, now we need a colorful bad guy.
Well the bad guy in Showtime wasn't all that colorful, I honestly can't remember whether the baddies were drug dealer or terrorists. Actually, they might have been drug-dealing terrorists. It doesn't really matter.
Eddie Murphy is a spectacularly funny actor, but he needs to make better decisions. As the star of Beverly Hills Cop, Murphy was Mr. Attitude. He was the coolest guy in the room and he knew it. In Murphy's most recent roles he has allowed himself to become less confident, less cool. Murphy has allowed himself to be made the fool. Eddie's appeal is as the Bugs Bunny of the action movie. He is at his best when his character is one step ahead of everybody, cracking wise and kicking ass. In Showtime and his most recent work he has been buffoonish and it's not fun to watch. Like Willie Mays with the New York Mets or Michael Jordan with the Washington Wizards, Eddie Murphy has lost a step.
It isn't just Murphy that makes Showtime a dull movie. Combine Murphy's performance with Deniro's sleepwalking and the lame dying mismatched buddy cop movie and you get Showtime.
