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| Directed by Scott Silver; Starring Claire Danes, Omar Epps, Giovanni Ribisi, Dennis Farina, Josh Brolin, Steve Harris, Michael Lerner, Richard Jenkins, and Larry Brandenburg |
That’s right ladies and gentleman, another film based on a television show. Despite the low reviews and dismal box-office for films like The Beverly Hillbillies and Boris and Natasha: The Movie, Hollywood is still looking for another The Fugitive and The Untouchables. This time they jump back to the 1970s series The Mod Squad, which just can’t help but be dated upon arrival.
The new film brings the same three cops from the series but opts for a “new” story that is just as incomprehensible as to why Universal allowed a remake of Psycho. They are a group of ex-criminals now chosen for undercover police work. They are in the hunt to find out why their leader was killed. There’s laughing, there’s crying, there’s drugs, there’s sex, and there’s even a group of Hanson wannabes. This movie has it all, that is all but a feasible plot. The director just goes hay-wire trying to think of some new way to make Ribisi look stupid as the low-brow idiot cop, or to make Epps look cool as the laid-back smooth cop, or make Danes look sexy as the angst riddled (if I ever have to think of those words with the likes of Danes again, I’ll scream) prostitute cop. The cast seems to be under the impression that all they have to do is walk around and say a few lines and this will make them stars, but that does not quite cut it. The only people that are fun to watch in the film are Michael Lerner and Dennis Farina, both of whom are barely in the film. There’s no way I could ever go out and tell someone to see this film even though it is still much better than Ravenous, The Other Sister, and Jawbreaker, not that that is saying much.
