Police... secours!

My mission as of late has been to watch every single film on the list of 100 worst movies ever made. Right now I have scratched off around 20, with this steaming pile of rotting filth being one of them. Make no mistake, Car 54 is one of the single worst movies to come out of Hollywood, or as I like to call it, Evil Town (creative name, no?). I violently protest any of the other posters who claimed that some parts of this movie were either "average" or (shudder) "funnny." Nothing in this movie works, from start to finish, and to save the sanity of others I will try and express who bad things get. The opening scene features a truly horrible song and dance number which is badly filmed with a soft glow technique and features a cartoon canary that at one point dresses up like a rapper (oh yeah, no racial stereotypes here, no sir). Then we discover that this was the dream of our main character, a goofy cop played by the single most irritating man on the planet. Seriously, his voice and silly putty face made me want to shoot someone when he started talking. We then get the opening credits as a crappy rap song is played, one where a single verse is repeated 3 TIMES. God, was that excruciating, considering that during this song I got supposedly "wacky" footage of the cops acting silly. The rest of the movie is populated with characters NO ONE could love, a barely existing plot that has no chance of being stretched over 90 minutes, and who knows what else. Honestly I couldn't stomach much of this trash, since most of the humor is either obvious or downright nasty. Obvious example: the policemen keep going to donut stores when they're supposed to be working. OH, HAR HAR HAR. Is that supposed to be funny in 1994, much less 2003? Plus the fact that the entire thing is horribly outdated by its fashion, soundtrack, and slang. This was back when rappers wearing giant clock necklaces was considered "hip," so you can imagine the amount of bad fashion choices spattered throughout this film. Rosie O' Donnel makes her film debut here, and she crashes and burns I'm happy to say. Nasty example: the main character actually has sex with Rosie O' Donnel while screaming, "Oooh! OOOOH! OOOOOOOH!" You can't know it by reading that, but he says it in a "comical" way. Trust me, it's just plain nauseating. AVOID CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU IF YOU VALUE THE PURITY OF YOUR SOUL. 0/4 stars

That's right, a Comic Genius created "Car 54, Where Are You?" His name was Nat Hiken and he created the BRILLIANTLY FUNNY TV series. It deeply saddens me that this film was ever made as it serves only to detract from how incredibly wonderful the original TV show was. That said, PLEASE don't judge the TV show by this moronic movie. If you have a chance to see the show, do so! DON'T think to yourself "Well if the film was that bad, then the TV series must be even worse!" Quite the contrary. The TV version is one of the funniest half hours of entertainment ever created. Every episode is a comic gem. Every character is terrifically hilarious and memorable. So in closing, I'll simply urge you yo go out and hunt down VHS copies and hold a marathon with all of your closest friends. The original "Car 54, Where Are You?" deserves to be discovered by a new generation of fans. Enjoy! You won't be disappointed.

Oh my god! This has to be the worst f-----ing movie I've ever seen! I saw this when I was 10 years old and this gave me a stomache ache.... honestly! I'm not kidding. That's how bad it is. Serious. I'm a fan of John C. McGinley, but what the hell was he thinking?! Aaaah! This movie forever tarnished my image of Rosie O Donnell. I mean, she's obnoxious enough without watching this movie! Ech! AAh! I think this is the worst movie ever made!

The old t.v. show had its undeniable quirky charm. this should be self evident, otherwise a 2 season sitcom from 1961-63 would have been long forgotten, and no studio would have thrown a 1990's budget at so weak a concept as to make a movie of an obscure t.v. relic. But the people behind the film had no concept of what made this show stick in peoples' craw, and that was the ridiculous innocence and banality of the crimes that mediocre good guys Toody, Muldoon, etc. encountered and dealt with in the big, bad city of New York on an episode by episode basis. Making Muldoon a crusader, rather than an equally bumbling ineffectual creature like Gunther Toody obliterates the charm of the sitcom. The whole idea of anyone from the squad actually approaching a ":real" or "serious" crime kills the whole premise of "Car 54 Where are You?" This is a relic of a sheltered and surreally unrealistic time, and this attempt to have one foot in this world and another in the semi post-repression non reality of contemporary aesthetics just doesn't cut it. Besides that, this is a bad mess of a movie on all standards.

Officer Toody gets assigned a new partner in technology freak Officer Muldoon. They spend much of the film getting to know each other before being assigned to protect federal witness Hebert Hortz from mobster Don Motti's hitmen. When they lose the witness both Toody and Muldoon must work together to save him.

The story here isn't really important as their isn't really one to speak of. The majority of the film is a whole pile of set pieces where Toody and Muldoon don't get on etc. Then with 30 minutes left they get assigned to protect Hortz, lose him and then have to get him back - it's as if the film suddenly realised that it has to do something while being onscreen. It all relies on the comedy rather than the plot, however there's barely a funny line in it - I half-laughed once when the two hitmen were talking ("I often considered plumbing as a vocation", "nah - I take the kids down to Florida"), and that was it for me, not another laugh in the whole damn thing. Even the scenes that play out over the credits are rubbish - I assume that they thought no one would be left by then.

The main problem with the film is the performances - especially Johansen. It's impossible to enjoy any scene that he's in because of his horrible voice and irritating OTT facial expressions. In this he really does have a face that you want to just keep kicking! McGinley is not as bad but when he's on screen you can't help but feel disappointed - he's had so many good support roles in good films but yet this is his reward. Likewise with Jeremy Piven - not a big star but always does good work in support. Here his gay witness is terrible - witness his rapping with black prisoners to see the depths he has sank. He did a gay character in Rush Hour 2 which was very funny and not totally OTT as it is here. Daniel Baldwin is hampered by a terrible character and at times you can almost see him thinking that he should have put a few more years in on "Homicide: LOTS". Rosie O'Donnell is awful and is almost as annoying as Johansen. One clever bit of casting is Barbara Hamilton as Toody's first partner - clever because of the Munster's connection with the original series, but he's not a great actor (his most recent work being novelty walk-ons in porn). Nipsey Russell really should have known better and should never have agreed to spoil the film's tag line by adding the f-word to it. Gore magicians Penn and Teller just add to the tacky novelty feel of the whole thing.

This should have treated the source material with more respect and it might have been better. However it's a real shambles. No plot, roundly terrible performances and not a laugh in the place. Many of the "jokes" are embarrassing - don't miss the opening scene where Johansen "sings" with a rapping cartoon bird. In fact the rapping thing bothers me because this is full of ethnic stereotypes and constantly uses black culture for comedy effect (like Piven rapping - to general applause!).

Overall it's not the worst thing I've ever seen but it is certainly one big unfunny embarrassment from start to finish.