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Reno 911 - Miami [2007]


RRP: £15.99
Our Price: £4.00 (subject to change)

Still Reno's Finest
Review date: 2008-06-27 Rating: 10 out of 10

I admit i'm a big fan of the series, but was slighty unsure about buying the movie after reading some rather luke-warm reviews on amazon.com.

I have to say thoogh that i was pleasently surprised. The team are still on top form in this tv-to-big screen transfer. The improv between the characters is spot on as ever, and the inevitable larger budget for this movie version is put to good use with some great action scenes and bigger gags.

I'll be honest, this film was never going to be a blockbuster. Sure, the plot's a bit ridiculous and some of the jokes are silly, but as a fan of the tv show, I cant say i was dissapointed. (the motel windows scene is comedy gold!)

If you've never seen the show, it might well seem a daft and forgetable movie, But for the fans, its definatly worth watching.

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Reviews


It's silly, dense, and juvenile. What else could you ask for?,
Review date: 2007-09-28 Rating: 6 out of 10

If there's nothing else a movie studio loves, it's a concept with a pre-existing audience. It's for that reason that multiplexes are forever jammed with sequels, adaptations of novels, remakes, and movies based on old TV shows, videogames and toys. And, of course, what has more of a built-in audience than taking the cast of a current TV series and giving them their own movie? This rarely works, but everybody wants to give it a shot, the less-seen the series, the better. I have never seen Comedy Central's wacky police sitcom Reno 911!, and aside from a funny trailer I had little reason to be optimistic about their big-screen adventure, Reno 911!: Miami. But that's why they play 'em: Miami is a genuinely hilarious comedy, the kind of fine cinematic effort I haven't seen since Steve Guttenberg left the Police Academy series.

A TV show trying to blow itself up to feature length faces many built-in challenges. A 30-minute TV episode is basically 23 minutes long when you take away the commercials, so even getting up to Reno 911!: Miami's brief 84 minute length means quadrupling the amount of plot, jokes and, well, footage involved in a regular episode. What helps in this case is that the story decided upon by series stars and screenwriters Robert Ben Garant, Kerri Kenney-Silver and Thomas Lennon (Lennon is a working writer whose credits include Night at the Museum (Widescreen Edition) is a movie story first and a Reno 911! story second. Wacky underdogs forced to rise to the occasion and save the city from an equally unhinged criminal conspiracy is a time-tested formula as long as the jokes are funny, and here, they're good. The gang's largely improvised banter is hilarious, the characters, led by Lennon's Lt. Dangle, are as lovable as they are pathetic, and Rudd's Al Pacino impression is ridiculous. The movie's nasty streak of animal humor also works particularly well: in addition to the chicken, standout bits include a visit to a nude beach to dispose of a beached whale carcass and an animal control call to a house with an alligator in the pool who's either dead or viciously homicidal. Miami seems pretty safe given how little real crime Reno's finest come up against while patrolling the streets, but then... did anyone check the plug on that 911 switchboard? The humor is, of course, pretty crude and sophomoric, but would you actually pay for a movie like this expecting anything else?

As much as the story is just a clothesline to hang gags on, I was surprised in the end by how much I wanted these fools to finally get it right. I don't want to give too much away, but the nature of the conspirators and their plan, when finally revealed, is funny, and the way Dangle and Co. finally catch on tells you everything you need to know about their fine detective skills. The plot can't always sustain its' momentum, and not all of the gags are hits, but everything moves fast enough to keep it from ever getting dull.


Tired Parody of "Cops". Mediocre.
Review date: 2007-08-30 Rating: 6 out of 10

The latest tired parody of television show "Cops", 2007's "Reno 911!: Miami" is only intermittently funny and devoid of the sort of quality that would raise it above the present day's usual forgettable lot. In fact, the only thing that the movie is at least a little memorable for is the improvisational skills of the numerous cast members. With many being present on the American television show based on the same group of ridiculously-looking Reno cops, the actors lend strength and enthusiasm to proceedings that otherwise wouldn't have been there. As is, "Reno 911!: Miami" is a flavourlessly directed, inanely scripted and completely misguided attempt at a comedy that has little clue how to make an audience laugh. Most of the humour is toilet or gross-out humour and sparse are the laughs as a result.

When the dimwitted staff of the Reno, Nevada police department are invited, for the first time, to a national police convention in Miami, they are initially delighted. The bunch -- consisting of bizarre Lieutenant Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon), awkward Deputy Trudy Weigel (Kerry Kenney-Silver), in-denial lesbian Deputy Cherisha Kimball (Mary Birdsong), slutty Deputy Clementine Johnson (Wendi McLendon-Covey), woman-crazy Deputy Travis Junior (Robert Ben Garant), unspectacular Deputy James Garcia (Carlos Alazraqui) and token black-guy-and-girl Deputies S. Jones (Cedric Yarbrough) and Raineesha Williams (Niecy Nash) -- uproot and travel to Miami via bus. When they get there they are turned away, with claims that they aren't on the list made. However, the group of eccentric officers decide to stay in Miami for the time-being. When a biochemical outbreak occurs at the convention, infecting every other officer present, the Reno cops are charged with upholding law in the city. Needless to say, they aren't the most adept when it comes to crime-fighting.

Thomas Lennon, much like the rest of the cast, is hit-and-miss as leader of the pack Jim Dangle. His comedic delivery is often spot-on, shame then that the lines he's delivering are more often unfunny than funny. Such is the same with all the other main cast members, with only Kerri Kenney-Silver and Niecy Nash particularly outstanding. The rest are just good. Otherwise there are nummerable bit-parts from the likes of Paul Rudd, Danny DeVito, The Rock, Ken Marino and many more.

"Reno 911!: Miami" starts off looking awful, with the opening scene, a dream, getting a couple of laughs. Otherwise, the first twenty minutes drag on as director Robert Ben Garant attempts to bring depth to his oddball characters while hitting the mark with his humour. Alas, Garant fails abysmally at this, with characters having little or no depth throughout, only being burdened with repetetive character traits and ticks that too often fail to make up for their wholly one-dimensional characters. Were more actually done to make the characters a little more like, well, people, then "Reno 911!: Miami!" could have well been a hoto. Instead, though, a feeling of awkwardness is supposed to amount to cinematic and comedic worth. Of course, it doesn't.

That isn't to say that I hated the movie. The fact is that there are several hilarious scenes throughout. Most notably when the man responsible for the biochemical attack on the cop convention (Paul Rudd) repeatedly lures the Reno cops to the same boat for torture. When one man not connected with the Reno cops is mistakenly thought to be in cahoots with them, he is threatened with a weed-whacker, leading to one of the movie's most funny, yet simplistic, lines when he asks who exactly would have a weed-whacker on a boat. Also, a scene regarding a beached whale is excellently done, with the Reno cops totally unaware of how to get the whale back into the sea. Still, the few hysterical scenes don't make up for the overall blandness of it all.

"Reno 911!: Miami" is a mediocre comedy destined to be forgotten by all but the built-in fanbase that such a motion picture comes with. Unfortunately, even the skilled cast cannot make proceedings any more spectacular or laugh-enducing, rendering the movie as totally forgettable.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Nick Swardson
Paul Rudd
Patton Oswalt
John Landgraf
Thomas Lennon

Creators:
Thomas Lennon (Primary Contributor)
Nick Swardson (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Paramount Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment
EAN: 5014437930835
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2007-09-03
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 80 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2007
Language: English (Original Language)

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