Starsky & Hutch

So the critics liked it, huh?:  Starsky and Hutch
by Christian De Matteo

PATHETIC

       Yeah, so I don't get the critical appeal factor on this bloated, ridiculously self-referential piece of weird that polluted my mind this Friday night.  How Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle could get almost universally panned and this be hailed as comedic brilliance, is only further proof of the intense f***-all our society is currently embroiled in.

       The film just doesn't work.  That's it.  No big ethical, it's anti-fill-in-the-blank reason.  No they tried really hard but the film just fell short.  No, it was the director's fault but the script was good.  The entire movie just doesn't work.  Filled from top to bottom with jokes that are so utterly bizarre you're positive you coughed over the punch line which it turns out didn't exist, and humor so self-referential that there is absolutely no opportunity to enjoy the flick as a film, whatsoever, the movie fails completely.

       Let me pause to say here, that I am, in fact, a Ben Stiller fan.  I generally like his humor, loved Zoolander, and am happy to see him on camera.  Alas, his humor, and strange, off-a-beat-or-twelve timing don't work here, and even his usual chemistry with Owen Wilson doesn't save this movie that should rely most heavily on the buddy-chemistry factor.  This movie, interestingly enough, reminded me of the confusingly uncomfortable humor of one of Stiller's own directorial credits, The Cable Guy, the weird Jim Carrey/Matthew Broderick film that just didn't work... for all the same reasons as this movie.  Weird for the sake of weird does not equal funny.

       Vince Vaughn does a fine job, in fact one of the best in the movie, as the head drug cartel villain, but otherwise the movie is filled with cliché - but not funny because they are even though they are supposed to be - performances, overdone, overused, sometimes elitist and snobby humor overripe with all the modern sensibility that humor is only funny when it takes a moment to seriously analyze its own funniness on camera.  Let me say this here:  this new trend in comedy is a bad one.  Comedy that relies solely on outside references and clever self-analysis to be funny every time is a mistake and the wrong direction to turn American comedy too.  Weird humor that is only supposed to be funny because it is completely and totally random and strange with no other humor basis is a waste of our time.  After the fourth strange joke we start looking at each other and saying, "What the hell?" as my friends and I did on Friday at this very film.

       A note to director Todd Phillips:  you were on the right track with Road Trip, slipped down a notch with Old School and just fell completely on your face with this flick. Want to analyze humor... check this downward comedy spiral.

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