Starsky and Hutch (4/10)

Poor Owen Wilson. He’s got talent and charm, but keeps getting stuck in these terrible films. Starsky and Hutch were TV detectives in the ‘70s, played by Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul along with a Ford Gran Torino car. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson reprise the roles in 2004. Half of it is pretty good, the Owen Wilson half. Stiller is monumentally miscast as the anal retentive Starsky and that’s only one place where the movie falls apart. Wilson gets Soul’s laid back attitude maybe better than Soul got it himself.

Bad casting isn’t limited to Stiller. Vince Vaughn plays Reese Feldman. He is intended to be a fearsome drug dealer. Instead he’s a wimp, even though he kills people in cold blood. Snoop Dog plays Huggy Bear, who was Starsky and Hutch’s informant. He’s as unconvincing as Stiller and Vaughn.

The story is as bad as the acting. Starsky and Hutch are trying to nab Feldman but keep getting thwarted. Let’s see, is there anything more? Well, nothing worth wasting electricity trying to explain. There are a couple of beautiful women, Staci (Carmen Electra) and Holly (Amy Smart), but they really don’t have anything to do with the, uh, story, you should pardon the expression. Oh, yeah, Fred Williamson plays Captain Dobey, the boss of Starsky and Hutch. But he doesn’t seem to have any raison d’etre, either.

People were laughing at my screening, but I couldn’t understand what it was they were laughing at. Stiller apparently does all his own stunt driving of the Torino. The problem is that Stiller is such a nebbisch he’s just not believable as the tough guy Glaser so accurately created as the original Starsky. It’s really glaring when Glaser and Soul appear in cameos at the end. Whoever thought of the idea of putting Glaser and Stiller side by side where Stiller’s deficiencies in the role are magnified immeasurably might be well advised to start looking for a job as a box boy at Ralphs. If you want better acting, a better script, a better story, more intelligent directing, well, better you stay home and watch reruns of The Rifleman.

March 2, 2004

The End

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