By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Dax Shepard
Cast: Dax Shepard, Michael Peña, Jessica McNamee, Adam Brody, Ryan Hansen, Kristen Bell, Vincent D`Onofrio, Cameron Cruz, Rosa Salazar, Vida Guerra, Jane Kaczmarek, Maya Rudolph, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Mae Whitman and Erik Estrada.
Rating: Poor.
Actor and Director Dax Shepard brings “CHIPS” based in the eighties tv show and like many adaptations from tv series to film this one failed and big time.
The movie tells the story of rookie Police Officer Jon Baker (Dax Shepard) who teams up with the experience Frank “Ponch” Poncherello (Michael Peña) to investigate a series of robberies and heists that involve crooked police officers.
At the beginning they begin to have constant arguments and Poncherello gets annoyed by Baker´s behavior and incompetence as a Police Officer but they must work together in order to stop this heists and of course to keep their jobs in the force.
Like I mentioned previously, most of TV Shows that are brought to the big screen don´t work and “CHIPS” proves my point.
Dax Shepard he only should have acted the film since it has been proved that he doesn´t neither have the experience on writing and directing a movie of this caliber.
The script was all over the place and it was filled with backstory which honestly I never cared from the beginning. The dialogue was to on the nose and the character of Jon Baker is like if you were watching a Drama Queen constantly that he wants to fix his marriage, which by the way he mentions that through 50% of the film.
In movies like this you have to go straight to the point and say what is important. Otherwise it will lead to a disaster and this movie it´s a major mess.
The jokes weren´t funny and the script wasn´t either. I´m surprised because both Dax Shepard and Michael Peña besides of being talented and charismatic actors could also be very funny but here there weren´t at all
What I saw in “CHIPS” was that Dax Shepard was trying to go to a direction like “48 HRS” and imitate with his screenplay most of the humor that both Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte had in their film.
But here is the thing, what made a movie like “48 HRS” work is beside being a buddy comedy filled with action and humor was the story itself. I didn´t see any story on “CHIPS” besides the fact that involve corruption in a Police Department. That I wanted to see more and Dax Shepard didn´t dig enough into that specific area and focused more in the male side of the characters.
With his direction I could tell that he made a huge effort on convince us as members of an audience that he is funny but in this film he isn´t and this film was a complete waste of time.
I loved the TV Show from the eighties but here it was not even close and led to an ultimate disaster.
With that being said “CHIPS” is one very bad film and for fans of the TV Show indeed you will be disappointed.