Reno 911: Miami
It is difficult to articulate my fondness for the cast of this semi-improvised Comedy Central show. They (the characters, not the incredible cast that plays them so straight) are ignorant, bigoted, petty incompetents who stumble through their sheriff’s department duties with a half-assedness that makes for real comedy.
So, the movie will be like the show, right, but without pixilated genitalia or bleeped vulgarities? Great! The filmmakers (as with many of the shows, the movie was directed by Robert Ben Garant a.k.a. Junior) did take advantage of their strong R rating: we have not gotten to see them really relax into their true vulgarity until now. It robs these characters of a little of their charm to have them use the real word instead of dancing around Comedy Central’s relatively lax but still existent standards, but it’s also freeing to let them really cut loose on each other.
The plot of the movie is appropriately over the top and ridiculous, as we would hope. For non-show-viewers, we get a few character traits spelled out for us like it was Season 1. However, they report these traits and then do little to demonstrate them; we fans know, but the movie won’t show us. In a way, this feels like Reno 911’s Star Trek Nemesis. Let me explain, that may have come out harsher than I meant it. Star Trek Nemesis took a ridiculous, generic plot idea for a second-rate science fiction movie and slapped the Star Trek: the Next Generation cast into it as just an afterthought. (The best Star Trek movies have all been character-driven, just like the episodes, and like all Reno 911 shows.) Reno 911: Miami takes an apparently discarded draft of a Die Hard movie or a rejected plot arc from 24 (note: I love Die Hard and 24), took out the actual stepping stones to resolve the plot idea, plunked our beloved Reno Sheriff’s Department in there, and said, “Do things your characters wouldn’t get to do on the show.” The result? Among other things, a weird, funny little motel door farce that ended oddly, some “local flavor” and brief interludes of giggly amusement. We get very little of what we love about Reno 911, which is our guys riffing on each other, trying to get each other into bed or out of trouble, or chasing comically absurd criminals.
The film solicited some of their regular collars into the cast of Miami residents, but almost not at all in their usual roles. For example, Terry is Terry, bless his velour-shorted heart, but the D&D guy as the acting mayor of Miami? We get the smile of recognition (“Oh, look, the smarmy carny!”) but none of the pleasure of them doing their schtick. A vignette in a backyard pool with a gator comes closest to recapturing the magic. I did laugh, and they seemed to be having fun, but overall I think the pace and arc of the movie did more damage than good to the show franchise.
Keep (or start) watching the TV show, and sit this one out until it’s free too. Of course, the irony of rating the movie Catch the Network Premiere is that they will have to blur and bleep (and cut) what made this movie of more value than the show. However, story is king, and must win out. Paul Rudd, you are a saint among groovy improvisers around the world.
MPAA Rating R-sexual content, nudity, crude humor, language and drug use.
Release date 2/23/07
Time in minutes 80
Director
Studio Fox/Paramount
