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Film Fare...with Mark Moorehead
Starsky & Hutch

General Audiences: C

Teenagers, Snoop Dogg fans and those old enough to remember the series are the target audience.  From the makers of Road Trip. Rated PG-13 for drug content, language and some violence. 

Family Audiences: D

Drug theme and humor associated with drugs is not funny to parents with children of any age.  Violence is tame by television standards, and the bad language is infrequent.       

 

Television-show parodies can be fun when they’re well done. Unfortunately, not many of them are. I Spy and Dragnet are examples of efforts that flopped. Exceptions, like Charlie’s Angel’s, have the right chemistry, mischief and excitement. They take on lives of their own, obliterating any lingering memory of the original series.

However, the best parodies are those based on an entire genre of movie making, like Airplane (disaster films), Naked Gun and Loaded Weapon (cop shows) or Haunted Mansion and Scary Movie (horror flicks).

In the last couple of years, ‘70s shows and nostalgia have been all the rage. Disco has made the rounds, and some well-known basketball players are sporting those chia pet fro’s, as in Afro.

The latest remake from the ‘70s is Starsky and Hutch, a big-screen attempt at memorializing that buddy-cop television show of the same name.

I’m old enough to remember watching Starsky and Hutch, but the show was hardly a classic, and I’ve never heard people clamoring to see the reruns.

Nonetheless, my guess is that there’s an audience that still enjoys snickering at the clothes, funky music and thick hair styles of 30 years ago. But don’t laugh too hard: those bell-bottom and hip-hugger pants that seem to be the rage today are actually remakes of ‘70s originals.

Detective David Starsky (Ben Stiller) is the most hard working, dedicated cop on the force.  However, he’s also the most inept, anal and obsessive control freak that ever walked a beat in Bay City.

His partner, Detective Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson (Owen Wilson), is basically a good cop who sees no moral or ethical contradictions in making a small profit from drug busts. Both officers constantly run afoul of police Captain Dobey (Fred Williamson). 

Dobey decides to pair the two up, hoping the yin and yang of law enforcement will neutralize each other’s faults. Of course, the opposite occurs when the volatile twosome investigates a drug-related murder. 

Innovative drug kingpin Reese Feldman (Vince Vaughn) has developed a new strain of cocaine that cannot be detected by dogs or traditional testing, and which tastes like sugar. This could be a real problem for drug enforcement and for any cop who likes his coffee sweet.

Unfortunately, Starsky and Hutch need help from anyone remotely related to the case before they can arrest this dastardly criminal. It doesn’t take long to realize the plot is really not what this film all about. Starsky and Hutch embark on a wild goose chase, bumping into characters and situations designed to showcase the buffoonery of the two detectives, all with a heavy touch of  ‘70s kitsch. 

Our dumb-and-dumber duo seek out the assistance of Huggy Bear (Snoop Dogg), a superfly, street-smart informant who goes beyond the call of dubious duty to help snag Reece Feldman.

Dogg struts around like a runway model, making costume changes faster than the speeding bullets Ben Stiller empties out of his gun every five minutes. 

Snoop points them in the direction of a prison inmate, the resultant meeting yielding the funniest scene in the movie. I’d tell you more, but there’s not much use: it’s one of those scenes you have to see to appreciate.

Starsky and Hutch then latch onto a couple of cheerleaders (Carmen Electra and Amy Smart) and head for the disco for a diversion that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot and is thrown in solely to poke fun again at those laugh-a-minute Saturday Night Fever dance contests and outrageous clothes. 

I won’t give away the ending. Let’s just say that Starsky and Hutch are rescued by someone unexpected. Sadly, the real Starsky and Hutch, who show up at the end of the film, deserved a better screenplay and one that made us laugh.

Pecan Grove Estates resident Mark Moorehead writes regularly for Wrangler News.

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