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STARSKY & HUTCH (15)

From the archive, first published Friday 19th Mar 2004.

IT'S NOT just sleeping dogs that you should let lie - old TV series could do with being left alone too.

Ben Stiller, who plays dark-haired Starsky, says this film isn't a spoof but that he isn't quite sure what it is and that's the trouble with it.

Starsky & Hutch doesn't go down the route of fellow 70s TV show remake The Brady Bunch Movie and go for all out laughs at the expense of the original programme but it doesn't quite play it straight either.

Much of the action is played for laughs (not that they're necessarily always funny) but at the same time the film seems to want to be taken at least semi-seriously as a cop drama.

You get the feeling that secretly Stiller and Wilson really wanted to make a `proper' cop film but as they knew no one was likely to let them, they resigned themselves to playing it for laughs.

It's as is we're being invited to share in their chance to live out their childhood dream of being Starsky and Hutch for real.

The film is packed with in-jokes from the TV series like Starsky's constant face-pulling, chunky cardigans and obsessive love of his car, but just because we recognise what they are referring to, that doesn't make it funny - this is the cinematic equivalent of stand-up comedians saying `anyone remember Spangles? Yes we do, but so what? Comedy and memory are not the same thing!

And Starsky and Hutch isn't the only film that's been dusted down and rehashed. This movie also borrows heavily from Zoolander, which sees Stiller and Wilson co-star as ditzy models. Starsky & Hutch even features an updated version of Zoolander's model `walk-off' in the form of a `dance-off', with Stiller battling for glory in the disco.

This isn't to say that the film doesn't have its moments. Stiller and Wilson have good chemistry and some of the jokes will make you laugh out loud, just not enough of them.

Lets hope no one decides to do the same thing to ChiPs.

Rating: 4/10

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