Cheer up boys, you could have starred in the original TJ Hooker

Film which tries to take the mickey out of reality TV shows. Only trouble is, it's not funny enough.

Nigel Bell

What with Big Brother and Survivor the lines between reality and fiction are becoming increasingly blurred.

That's the premise of Showtime.

Stick a camera crew with a real live cop and follow him on his day to day duties, only change his life enough to make him television friendly.

The plot
Detective Mitch Preston (De Niro) is on the verge of a major drug bust when cop/would-be actor Trey Sellars (Murphy) turns up and ruins the operation.

De Nero shoots the camera and that leads to all his problems

Chasing the fugitive, a frustrated Preston shoots a TV camera (just the camera, not the operator).

It's the excuse the TV company needs to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the LAPD.

They're given an opt-out - put Preston up as the star of a reality cop show called Showtime, and they'll drop the claim.

Preston has no choice but to conform but his mood isn't improved when wannabe detective Sellars is named as his sidekick.

Thus the pair are thrown together and have to track down villain Ceasar Vargas (Pedro Damián).

You won't be surprised to hear it all ends in a big shoot-out.

The verdict
Showtime isn't as bad as you might have read about. It's actually a nice idea - how real is reality TV?

Let's get this straight - I do not say "beam me up Scotty"

The biggest problem the film has is whether it's a comedy or serious and actually trying to make a relevant point.

Like the blurring between contrived and real, Showtime can't seem to make up its mind.

Some of the jokes are just lame and predictable. At one stage Murphy is trying to impress at a crime scene and orders the fingerprinting of a plastic water bottle, only to discover it's owned by the chief of forensics.

But there are good moments. William Shatner plays himself harking back to his TJ Hooker days in an attempt to teach the real cops how to act for the cameras.

There's also a nice scene where Murphy pretends to be from the cable TV show Justice to extract information from a reluctant con.

Essentially, however, this is a buddy movie, with the reluctant De Niro eventually accepting the Murphy character isn't as bad as he first thought.

Of course, he can only come to that conclusion after several high velocity shoot-outs.