Showtime

Directed by Tom Dey, Showtime follows grizzled detective Mitch Preston (Robert De Niro) as he reluctantly agrees to participate in a Cops-like television program alongside a fellow police officer (and aspiring actor) named Trey Sellars (Eddie Murphy). It’s decidedly familiar territory that’s employed to somewhat erratic yet mostly entertaining effect by Dey, as the filmmaker, armed with a script by Keith Sharon, Alfred Gough, and Miles Millar, delivers a briskly-paced comedy that boasts several entertaining interludes and a surfeit of appealing performances – with, in terms of the latter, De Niro and Murphy’s winning work here heightened by the unexpectedly (and irresistibly) palpable chemistry between their respective characters. And although the hit-and-miss midsection admittedly does suffer from a handful of lulls, Showtime eventually progresses into a satisfying second half that effectively wraps up the various plot threads and features an impressively exciting climactic action sequence – which does, in the end, cement the movie’s place as a better-than-anticipated buddy-cop comedy.

*** out of ****