Starsky & Hutch

The tale of two oddball police detectives who have a habit of getting stuck in awkward situations even with the best of intentions. Starsky (Ben Stiller) is very much by-the-book – embarrassingly so – whereas Hutch has a laid back rather ‘hippy' approach to the rules. One of the films great strengths is that it plays on satire and keeps the action secondary. The two main characters are ably aided and abetted by Huggy Bear (Snoop Dogg) and, although there is a big-drugs-bust plotline, the movie's main intention seems to be to make a homage to the style and clichés of certain 70s filmmaking (and the original TV show); car chases, for instance, focus on tongue-in-cheek action rather than adrenalin, and the cops' love of empty-headed curvaceous women combined with a homophobia towards each other and gay men is portrayed laughingly as an echo of the attitudes of the times rather than appealing to those sentiments. Not the sort of comedy I expected to enjoy so much personally, but I quickly warmed to this movie and found the feelgood factor continued unabated till the end.

So any time you mix a Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Todd Phillips, Wilson brother, and/or Vince Vaughn these days... you're pretty much guaranteed greatness (or at least a box office success). Will this train to gravy town ever end? Not with "Starsky" it won't... another winner. (This time with Juliette Lewis -- her first time? -- and Snoop Dogg -- also in "Old School" -- thrown in.) The film is full of great moments, from the dissertation on the sovereignty of Luxembourg to the return of the Dan Band (again, "Old School").

Chris Penn's appearance was sad... but if this was one of his last films, at least he left an impact in this world. Thanks, Chris, I love you.

I should also mention the soundtrack is spectacular - bringing back old hits that time has forgotten, much like "Dodgeball". All over, this film was very enjoyable and I'll probably end up watching it over and over again on those cold Wisconsin nights.

As for the plot, it's two cops in the 1970s working undercover and disco dancing, while making out with Carmen Electra and fighting Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn in cheesy mustaches. If that's not your cup of tea, move on... but if it is, you'll probably love this film as much as some of the others (although this film is not as good as "Dodgeball" or "Anchorman", if that's what you think I'm getting at.)

Starsky and Hutch was pretty damn funny. Stiller and Wilson were exceptional in the two roles. Stiller played the "by the book", straight and narrow cop, Starsky, and Owen Wilson played the loose, largely irresponsible, and borderline criminal, Hutch.

I never saw the show to have as a reference which I think may have helped me enjoy the movie more. Vince Vaughn's character didn't do much for the movie, but Will Ferrel's character certainly did. In fact, the scene with Will Ferrel had to be one of, if not the funniest scene in the movie.

It seemed like a great tribute to the original to me.

Of all the recent buddy-cop movies, released lately this is one of the better ones.

Biggest strength of this movie is in the two main characters played by Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. They are such a great screen duo together and have some great team chemistry on the screen. The movie is filled with many other great comical talented actors such as; Vince Vaughn as the main villain, Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell and some smaller roles for famous names such as; Chris Penn, Carmen Electra, Amy Smart and Juliette Lewis.

But the movie is more then just an ordinary buddy-movie, it also is a priceless parody of '70's TV-shows in general. It uses some of the same camera-positions and style of editing at times, especially in the action sequences. But also the way of acting, dialog and costumes perfectly spoof all those silly '70 TV-series. I'm not sure if everybody catch or understood this but I really laughed out loud at some moments.

The comedy can be put in the category silly, so this movie is clearly not suitable for everyone. The humor is really over-the-top but I for one really enjoyed that. The characters are really silly but the professional comedy actors portray them extremely well and likable.

A perfectly fun comedy to kill some time with.

7/10

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STARSKY & HUTCH

I had seen this film for sale in my local DVD shop so cheap that I had to buy it. Everyone I had spoken to that had seen it had told me that this film was terrible. Every review I had read about it says it is really bad… but my attitude towards it was "How bad can it be?". The truth is… I actually quite enjoyed it.

The movie is based on an old TV show of the same name. 2 police officers are forced to work with each other, but they are both completely different to each other. They are trying to hunt down a drug dealer that has some cocaine in his possession that is completely undetectable. Not even the police dogs can smell it.

The comedy in this movie is not great. I laughed out loud once throughout the entire movie. But that is not to say it was not funny. There were a few moments in the film that made me smile and I thought were entertaining. I do wish it was funnier though. The story was quite good, but nothing we have not seen a million times before in buddy cop movies.

The action as really good in places. The car chases were really good and the stunts reminded me of watching the classic TV shows that I loved as a kid, Knight Rider and the Dukes of Hazzard. It was great to see the old red Gran Torino with the white stripe along the side. I love that car… I don't really remember it from TV as I never watched the show, but I know the car. During the credits at the end, you can see some of the car stunts that go wrong during filming. These are awesome, but it is a shame to see the lovely cars getting smashed up.

I like the actors in this movie. The film stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. These guys are funny guys, but sometimes it just doesn't work. I thought Ben played his part well and Owen played his part well too, but for some reason the chemistry between them both felt like something was missing. I could not imagine them as partners and even after watching them for 90 minutes, I still didn't really see them as partners. But nonetheless, they both did well and I enjoyed watching them. There were a lot of other famous faces in this film that I didn't know were in it… Snoop Dogg, Fred Williamson, Vince Vaughn, Juliette Lewis, Jason Bateman, Amy Smart, Carmen Electra and Chris Penn. Also I loved the cameo at the end from the original Starsky & Hutch, David Soul & Paul Michael Glaser from the TV show. I loved it and thought it was a great ending to the film.

OK, so the film as a whole was not brilliant, the comedy was not up to par and the acting was not great in places, the story could have been better too but this was still really entertaining. It did not deserve the bashing by all the reviewers that it took.

I will give this film 7 out of 10.

"A floater. Nothing harder to solve than a floater. No prints, body's usually bloated, it's next to impossible. All right, I say we push it out and hope the current pushes it down to the next precinct."

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