Reno 911!: Miami Review
Sun, 02/25/2007 - 5:58pm
Pop quiz: You’re at a bar when your friend announces, “I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.” You . . .
A) Change the subject rapidly.
B) Feign interest and ask which book your friend is currently reading.
C) Snarf your beer and reply, “I caught you a delicious bass.”
If A or B seem like reasonable responses to you, stop reading right now. "Reno 911!: Miami" was not made for you. But if you find yourself thinking, “C would work, but really I wanna be on you would have been a more appropriate response,” get your tickets now.
The premise of the movie, for those of you who have missed the previews, is that Lt. Jim Dangle and his incompetent crew of cops arrive in Miami for a convention, only to find that their registration cannot be confirmed. After spending the night at a seedy dive, they awake to discover that the convention site has been quarantined following a bio-terrorism attack––with 2,000 cops and every politician higher than the deputy sheriff trapped inside.
With the fate of the city in their hands, the Reno crew quickly adapts to their new surroundings. After all, one city is pretty much like the other, as Dep. Travis Junior notes toward the beginning of the film: Reno is pretty much like Mayberry with a healthy dose of meth addiction and legalized prostitution.
Fans of the show will find that its best elements transfer to the big screen just as easily, though it doesn’t escape the difficulties that plague any 30-minute show when it’s stretched into an 84-minute feature. The film occasionally panders to the lowest common denominator, indulging in unnecessary vulgarity and infantile humor. "Miami" also lacks the tightness of its television counterpart, and the movie’s worst moments fall within the long filler sections that director Ben Garant allows to slip through the editing process.
The film is at its strongest when the characters are allowed to blaze in all their neurotic glory, and there is plenty of that. There are some painfully funny interactions between the clueless cops and the city they’ve come to protect. Ultimately, it can’t compare to the best episodes of the show, but it’s satisfying, if sophomoric, entertainment.
"Miami" isn’t cinema verite, so if you value details like plausibility and logic, you should probably take a pass. But if watching a grown man plunge headfirst into a decomposing whale tickles your funny bone, this is the flick for you.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, and you’ll probably find the best lines popping up in pub conversations for many years to come.
Reno 911!: Miami
Rated R
84 minutes
About the author
L. McGinnis
Categories:
okay movie
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 02/25/2007 - 6:13pm.
This is no Super Troopers, Old School, or Wedding Crashers, but it did have it's funny parts. I'm not a big fun of the show but occasionally I have sat through it, chuckling from time to time.
I think Laura's review is dead on in that you need a certain sense of humor to appreciate this movie. For some reason I just can't picture too many people on Capitol Hill running to see this, but I've been wrong before.
okay
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/27/2007 - 9:46pm.
Yeah, but not everybody in D.C. lives on Capitol Hill. There are plenty of college students, and I think this is kind of a college humor type movie.
Thanks
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/27/2007 - 10:06pm.
Thanks for posting the review. I enjoyed reading it.
Better Than
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 03/01/2007 - 4:41pm.
Honestly, Reno 911 is better than the mediocre Super Troopers, the rapidly waning Old School, and the misleading Wedding Crashers. Atleast Reno stays true to it's core concept, and the laughs are rapid fire and consistent. The best part about it is that you don't need to be a fan to enjoy it, and the cameos are sprinkled in brilliantly without being overdone. I'd venture to say that the Rock's appearance packs more laughs in a shorter time than Will Farrell's shoehorned appearance did in Wedding Crashers. Is Reno the funniest movie ever? No. Is it the funniest cop film since the earliest Police Academy's and Naked Guns? Absolutely.
back up your statements
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 03/01/2007 - 7:39pm.
How is Wedding Crashers "misleading"? Old School is not "waning". How can you call Super Troopers "mediocre"? You need to be a little more descriptive if you're going to go slamming these awesome movies.
I agree with you that the Rock's appearance was funny, but Reno 911 is much more of a slapstick comedy compared to the comedic genius in Old School.
If you're going to dish dirt back it up.
Back Up
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 03/03/2007 - 9:17pm.
I would've been more elaborate in my statements before, but I was in a hurry. Hopefully this will clear my side up a little.
Wedding crashers is misleading because it's not even about crashing weddings. It's about three minutes of it, actually, then the rest is standard romantic comedy fare. Boy meets girl, girl has jerk boyfriend, boy steals girl away. Pretty basic stuff, and not all that cleverly accomplished. The saving grace of the film are the performances by Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher. Otherwise, it's not the strongest Vince Vaughn performance, and there's no such thing as a strong Owen Wilson one.
Old School, while still funny to an extent, isn't nearly as good now as it was at the time. I think it's a film that people loved based solely on the premise. Other than Frank the Tank doin' the naked mile, most of the jokes fall flat upon multiple viewings. The grouping of castmates, which was rather unique at the time, isn't so fresh now thanks to multiple films with these people playing virtually the same roles doing the same type of humor.
Super Troopers just isn't a film I found very funny. But then, I've never much cared for Broken Lizard. I do like to think that some thought went into the jokes being performed on screen, and I don't get that feeling when watching any of their films. Not to say that they need to be "smart" talky comedies, but it seems like every joke they deliver is telegraphed from a mile away. That's no fun. Jay Chandradaskar did some great work on Undeclared, though. I wish he'd bring some of that directing skill to BL's movies.
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