Taxi (DVD)
APPROX. 0 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2004 - MPA RATING: PG-13
" Taxi is one long car chase, which quickly crashes and burns.
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Finally, a 2004 release worthy to be mentioned in the same breath with "Scooby-Doo 2," "Torque," "Species III," "White Chicks," and "New York Minute." Without a doubt, "Taxi" is among the elite, truly one of the worst films of the year.
How bad is "Taxi"? How bad do you want it to be? The DVD gives you two versions: the regular theatrical version clocking in at 97 minutes and a new extended version at 104 minutes. So, you get bad and worse than bad on the same disc.
"Taxi" is one of those films that tries to combine the merest semblance of realism with pure farce and fails on both counts. I mean, in some comedies the humor springs naturally from the main characters' circumstances or from the characters' witty repartee. A contemporary romantic comedy like Will Smith's "Hitch" comes to mind. In other movies, the humor springs from the total ineptness of a central figure. A character like Inspector Clouseau, for example, is a bumbler who continues to muddle everything he does, yet he rises in the world. A few politicians also spring to mind. But in "Taxi" the main characters are so witless, we don't so much laugh as pity them.
The movie stars Queen Latifah ("Bringing Down the House") and Jimmy Fallon ("Saturday Night Live"). Although Latifah is listed first in the credits, it's really Fallon's movie to make or break. He breaks it. He plays a New York City undercover cop who is such an idiot he can't even drive a car. Yet they give him a badge. Clouseau and the characters from "Car 54, Where Are You?" look like Einsteins compared to Fallon's character, Andy Washburn. Here's a sample: Washburn is driving his mother's car because he has wrecked his own. He's parallel parked with about six feet of room between him and the car ahead and the car behind. He backs up and smashes into the car behind him. Unfazed, he pulls forward without turning the steering wheel and smashes into the car ahead of him. Then, for reasons unknown, he backs up again without turning the wheel, and again he smashes into the car behind him. This goes on for what seems like an eternity, while the audience wonders what on earth the filmmakers thought might have been funny. The Washburn character does not come off like an Inspector Clouseau, someone who's a loveable blunderer; instead, he comes off like someone who's mentally challenged. To laugh at him would be like laughing at Lennie in "Of Mice and Men." It just isn't done. Yet for reasons completely beyond me, it's expected of us to laugh in this film.
Queen Latifah plays a cab driver, Belle Williams. She sets the tone for the movie at the very beginning when we see her working for a bicycle messenger service and setting a crosstown speed record on her bike. She literally flies over the countryside, running over the tops of automobiles and leaping vast distances between buildings, all to the accompaniment of pop singer Beyonce Knowles's "Crazy in Love." The whole sequence is totally ridiculous, even for a silly slapstick comedy like this. It's filled with energy and motion for no purpose other than to make the viewer say, "Come on, nobody could do that." What's the point if it's not funny? Then we learn it's Belle's last day with the messenger service because she's finally been granted a city cab driver's license. Later we learn she has seventy-five moving violations on her record, but the city grants her a cabbie's license? Her ambition is to be a NASCAR race driver, and because she's also a genius at auto mechanics, she has equipped her new cab with all kinds of supercharged options that put 007's Aston-Martin to shame. What are the odds?
A quick reminder to filmmakers: Car chases and car crashes have been around since the silent days of movie comedies, and unless something new can be added, they are no longer amusing. "Taxi" is one long car chase, which quickly crashes and burns.
The plot involves Washburn pursuing four bank robbers and commandeering Belle's cab in the process. The robbers turn out to be beautiful women (led by supermodel Gisele Bundchen), who strip to bikinis at one point. Any reason for this? You figure it out. Washburn's boss is his ex-girlfriend, Lt. Marta Robbins (Jennifer Esposito). She gets so disgusted with him, she first takes his driver's license away (expecting him to carry out his police duties on foot) and then kicks him off the force. The latter move is the only sensible one in the picture.
The movie is so heavy-handed it can't even find a use for the talented Ann-Margret. She plays Washburn's drunken mother. That's it. She's supposed to be an adorable, quirky drunk, but in every scene she's in, she comes off simply as a deplorable lush. A waste.
I suppose I shouldn't even mention that "Taxi" is based on a 1998 French film of the same name by writer/producer/director Luc Besson, a film that was so popular it spawned two sequels. This is not one of them. Nor should I mention that between 1932 and 2004 there were some twenty movies produced with the title "Taxi." So, if you're looking for a good ride, you might want to look elsewhere; you have plenty of choices.
