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Mathew Scott

Starring: Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, Rene Russo

Director: Tom Dey

Category: IIA

Robert De Niro's career is going through a funny time. Well, come to think of it, maybe it's not that funny at all. De Niro first tried working his tough-guy image for laughs opposite Billy Crystal in Analyze This (1999) and we have since become accustomed to him playing 'out of character'.

And it has worked in varying degrees - most notably in Meet The Parents (2000) - but the question remains: how long can he keep going back to the well before the laughs run dry? Showtime, it seems, provides the answer.

Here De Niro (right) turns up as gruff veteran cop Mitch Preston, who we first find talking to a bunch of schoolchildren as if they were criminals. From there he runs into fellow policeman Trey Sellars (Eddie Murphy) during a bungled bust that is caught on camera and soon finds himself thrown into the world of reality television, with the over-ambitious Sellars as his unlikely partner. So the laughs are expected to come from the mismatched pairing: the crusty old-timer and the flash jack. And they do, to begin with, but the jokes soon dry up.

There's a villain with a nasty new gun out on the streets, and the pair - between becoming overnight sensations on their new show - try to track him down. It is here that any sense of parody disappears and, along with it, the laughs. Director Tom Dey (Shanghai Noon) turns up the action quotient, but loses the plot at the same time. And De Niro and Murphy actually begin to look uncomfortable, both with each other and the lines they are asked to deliver.

The brightest spark in the whole affair comes from William Shatner playing William Shatner. He draws on his vast experience as television's T J Hooker to give De Niro 'tips' on how to act - but his appearance is all too brief.

Rene Russo mails in her performance as the pushy television producer and the whole thing is brought to a rather abrupt conclusion.

I'm always wary of films that tack out-takes on at the end - it's as if the makers want to divert you from the failings of the main event. And that's precisely what they do here.

At one point De Niro's character - cannibalising catchlines from some famous crime capers, including his own - stares down the camera and says: 'I'm too old for this ****.' That's a sound appraisal.

Showtime opens on June 13.



Showtime