Showtime

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Showtime ★★ 2002 (PG-13)

Murphy hams and De Niro grimaces as they both plod through this lame buddy cop comedy. The odd couple are the fiery LAPD detective Preston (De Niro), who's forced to star in a realitybased TV cop show with beat cop/frustrated actor Sellars (Murphy) after Preston impulsively shoots out a network camera and must avoid a law suit. Russo is the show's producer and has little to do here. The rest of the action involves tracking down some robbers who are also the owners of a really, really big gun. Shatner briefly injects some life into the lackluster action as he coaches the boys on how to play to the camera. Although the two leads are unarguably cast correctly and easy to watch doing what they do best, the premise lets them, and the audience, down. 95m/C VHS, DVD . US Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, Rene Russo, Frankie Faison, Mos Def, William Shatner, Pedro Damian, Nestor Serrano, Drena De Niro, Kadeem Hardison, TJ Cross, Judah Friedlander; D: Tom Dey; W: Alfred Gough, Keith Sharon, Miles Millard; C: Thomas Kloss; M: Alan Silvestri.