Reno 911!: Miami – Review

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Image courtesy of www.impawards.com

Director :

Ben Garant

Cast :

Ben Garant………. Deputy Travis Junior
Niecy Nash………. Deputy Raineesha Williams
Mary Birdsong……….Deputy Cherisha Kimball
Kerri Kenney……….Deputy Trudy Wiegel
Wendi McLendon-Covey……….Deputy Clementine Johnson
Carlos Alazraqui……….Deputy James Garcia
Cedric Yarbrough……….Deputy S. Jones
Thomas Lennon……….Lieutenant Jim Dangle

If Reno 911!: The Movie is more proof of one thing it’s that sometimes a cult television show just can’t be translated to the big screen. After the commercial and critical failure of the Tenacious D movie late in 2006, the Reno County Sherriff’s Department gets nearly 90 minutes to show off the quirks that has made Reno 911! a cult hit on Comedy Central. Judging by the film, perhaps they should’ve kept this on the cable channel.

The film stars the entire cast of the show in the roles that were bigger cult sensations than The State and Viva Variety, of which many of the cast also starred in. Fearless leader Lt. Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon), clueless Deputy Weigel (Kerri Kenney), sluttish deputy Johnson (Clementine Johnson), Deputy Jones (Cedric Yarbrough), Deputy Junior (Robert Ben Garant), Deputy Williams (Niecy Nash) and Deputy Kimball (Mary Birdsong) all make their venture to the big screen with Garant pulling double duty behind the director’s chair.

Invited to a police convention in Miami, the clueless officers of the Sherriff’s Department are the only ones left outside the convention center when a bioterrorist weapon traps everyone inside. Left as the only police presence in the city, the uniquely talented officers are left to serve and protect the city of Miami. And what could’ve been a great comedy ends being a sub-par movie because of one thing: the inability to leave the television atmosphere behind.

Coming from being a spoof of Cops to a feature length film is something that would be hard to translate Reno 911! into; part of its allure is that it is such a terrific spoof of Cops that the format works for 30 minutes. Part of making this a film requires giving up its current style and acquiescing into a more direct narrative; what the film loses gains by extending its running length in terms of total story it loses in its narrative style. Trying to give focus to a medium that has won many fans by its lack of a sustained focus takes away from the uniqueness of the subject. The sort of quick cuts and jumps from different sub-plot lines that the film employs doesn’t work without the television format to sustain it. The film tries to keep jumping around from plot setup to another plot setup while trying to keep one long story arc moving forward; it doesn’t work at all. If it were a three episode story arc on the television show, it would work much more smoothly, but sustained without any break it gets bothersome after the first half hour of the film.

The other thing about the film is that for a comedy, it’s not really that funny. Trying to build up to one major laugh with several smaller ones preceding it, the film has about one good laugh every 10-15 minutes. That’s a bit of a problem for a comedy, as there long dead spots in the film with jokes in them that aren’t funny at all. The cast is trying to translate their brand of improvisational humor from the television show to a movie and it just doesn’t work; it’s the film’s cameo appearances that are the film’s best moments. With professional wrestler turned action star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson taking a turn as a spoof of the action hero cop, Danny Devito as the mayor in a fantasy sequence and Paul Rudd doing a hilarious impression of Al Pacino’s iconic Tony Montana all steal the scene in hilarious manner. Their jokes aren’t very impressive but they are flat out funnier than anything the main cast provides for 99% of the film.

When all is said and done, translating a cult phenomenon into a movie that appeals to the masses is something that will be considered much more difficult than normal. Trying to change the bulk of what makes Reno 911! an enjoyable television series into something that will appeal outside of its target audience is a bold move that ultimately doesn’t work. Much like the Tenacious D movie was last year, Reno 911!: Miami is a subpar comedy developed from a cult phenomenon and designed for mass appeal that doesn’t work because of the major changes involved.

FINAL RATING (ON A SCALE OF 1-5 BUCKETS):