A clever satire about reality TV, Showtime is a lot of fun and is full of laughs. To avoid a lawsuit for shooting a journalist’s camera detective Mitch Preston is forced to star in a reality cop show and is teamed up with a wisecracking patrolman who sees the show as his big chance to become an actor. Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, and Rene Russo lead the cast and deliver strong performance. And William Shatner has a wonderfully hilarious cameo in which he spoofs his TJ. Hooker persona. However, the villain is rather weak and his scheme is kind of cliché. Still, all around Showtime is a tremendously entertaining film that’s pretty funny.
8/10
Loved it! Really funny:joy:
Look. This isn't a good movie. It's watchable. It has its moments, but it's not good. And it suffers from the unforgivable crime that was so so prevalent in the late 90s early 2000s, and that's the whole commentary on reality TV and how it's not really reality, but produced by slicksters and fame hungry wanna be's, blah blah blah. Snooze. I hate reality TV too but I might hate the genre of "mocking" it even more.
Anyway, I can forgive the two leads. My heart goes out to them because they are being the things we want them to be, and we just didn't bite. It's no surprise Eddie Murphy is a humorless grump these days. He's tried repeatedly to give us the stuff he thinks we want from him but it just hasn't worked in forever. Even as recently as Tower Heist, there were flashes of old Eddie in there but we didn't care. I blame us.
De Niro however has been more or less successful with mocking his image and this was right around the time I think it started to sour for him. Watching it now it's basically the only De Niro we know, the old curmudgeon with a heart of gold. It's still entertaining.
Mediocre comedy with some great acting by Robert De Niro.
Shout by NarateVIP 5BlockedParent2022-03-18T16:01:06Z
Who knew that Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro would have such good chemistry. This movie is not special by any means but it was fun seeing them together arguing over everything. Rene Russo is always a bonus as well. Oh and William Shatner is actually hilarious too.