Unfortunately, “Starsky and Hutch” is too segmented and too goofy to compare with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson’s earlier collaborations. Nothing in this film compares to the quirky drive that both actors utilized in the ferociously fresh “The Royal Tenenbaums.” And the duo had already perfected stupid comedy with “Zoolander.” “Starsky and Hutch” simply pushes Stiller’s uppity perfectionist and Wilson’s lovably laid-back idiot past the breaking point, into a realm of painful annoyance. There is nothing new here from either one of them.
Stiller plays David Starsky, a jumpy, clumsy cop always trying to live up to the flawless career of his mother, who had worked in the same precinct. And Hutch is such a poor policeman that he’s reverted to crime and gets caught robbing criminals. After these two get paired up by the constantly aggravated Captain Doby (Fred Williamson, “Dusk Til Dawn”), the film morphs into every other goofball buddy cop flick you’ve ever seen.
After setting itself up, the plot becomes segmented, playing almost like a sketch comedy show. The duo is sent to random places to interact with multitudes of throwaway characters. Disrobing cheerleaders, hand towels and mimes all make appearances. Chris Penn (“Murder By Numbers”) shows up for a useless cameo as the clichéd bully-cop who continually rails Starsky and Hutch for their backward cop work and public humiliations.
In fact, this film has a knack for wasting talent. Vince Vaughn (“Old School”) kicks out the film’s drug-dealing, homicidal bad guy, Reece Feldman with the lax effort of a disinterested pro. His jokes aren’t written for maximum laughs and Vaughn is left floundering with a boring character. Juliette Lewis (“Natural Born Killers”) plays Feldman’s girl-on-the-side, and she hardly does anything other than look dumb and lather suntan lotion on her beau. Carmen Electra (“My Boss’s Daughter”) and Amy Smart (“Varsity Blues”) play ditzy, threesome-prone cheerleaders, and Molly Sims (TV’s “Las Vegas”) as Feldman’s wife couldn’t have sputtered more than two lines throughout the film.
One of the only characters who takes full advantage of his onscreen time is Will Farrell’s incarcerated con, Big Earl. Farrell’s homoerotic obsession with dragons forces Starsky and Hutch into more embarrassment, but is 10 times more enjoyable than the stream of dead-end scenes that precede it. And Snoop Dogg as the duo’s snitch, Huggy Bear, executes some pristine comedy, especially as Starsky plants a massive wire around his waist for some undercover work.
But the letdowns are numerous. One scene starts out well, Starsky mistakes cocaine for artificial sweetener and gets off his face while Hutch sings “Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby,” the hit single (albeit a lame one) that David Soul (the real Hutch) released while still filming the original television series. But the scene quickly derails when Starsky tangles himself in a too-long-to-be-remotely-entertaining disco battle. Wilson nails it when Hutch says, “This is lame.”
With “Starsky and Hutch,” director Todd Williams (“Old School” and “Road Trip”) seems to have a cast he doesn’t know what to do with and relies on Stiller and Wilson to fall back on what they know best, which is what we’ve already seen many times before.
Grade: C
