Writer & Director / Dax Shepard (HIT AND RUN)
Stars/ Michael Peña, Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell and Vincent D’Onofrio
This feature film adaptation of CHIPS is written, produced and directed by its star Dax Shepard (best known for appearing in TV Series Parenthood). Based on the TV Series of the same name from 1977-1983, CHIPS was an action crime dramedy that followed the lives of two motorcycle police officers who worked the California Highway Patrol. The officers never fired a shot from the guns they were carrying throughout the entire series, which was rarely ever violent. Off the basis of that knowledge, there will be little in common shared to the series by this very crude and violent action comedy movie instalment.
At the age of 42, Dax Shepard vainly casts himself as rookie cop John Baker, who is teamed up with a more experienced highway patrol officer, Frank Poncherello (Peña, in good form here). Baker, who is horribly naive, thinks that his duty by day is to dish out parking tickets and at night comes home to a wife (played by real-life wife Kristen Bell) who he believes is restricting activity in their backyard pool with another man to swimming lessons. He is therefore in for a rude awakening when discovering his colleague is in fact working undercover on a heist case that involves corrupt members of the force.
The opportunity to have a laugh throughout CHIPS is strictly limited. Not only due to the lack of variety which decidedly opts for humour of poor taste, but also the frequency in which it is distributed. Humour aside, the action component of the film is executed in sloppy fashion, resulting in a film that I imagine bears little resemblance to the TV Series it is based upon.
Dax Shephard mistakenly has the impression that he is licensed to pull off an indecent and rude buddy cop movie. The intent of his writing work, which often signals comments that fuel and belong to sexism and speaks in a derogatory tone all throughout, is just nasty stuff. There is no better example to give of the frequent distaste found in CHIPS than a passing gag that is made which inappropriately compliments Oscar Pistorius. Ladies, if you’re fit looking and dressed in yoga pants at a public place, then you are also an object of Shepard’s disaffection. Even if this cheap shot at a harmful laugh tickles your funny bone, Shepard’s lamentable attempt at functioning a heist story remains another hurdle too high to jump. The foolish decision to show and tell this part of the plot throughout not only eliminates the chance for CHIPS to perhaps have a single surprise, it also emphasises just how lightweight the script really is.
Avoid.
1 ½ stars
Viewer Discretion/ MA15+ (strong violence and coarse language. Also contains crude sexual content, graphic nudity and drug use)
Trailer / CHIPS
Moviedoc thanks Village Roadshow and Village Cinemas, Jam Factory for the pre-film event and invite to this film screening.
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