Taxi film review

certificate_12A

TAXI

Don't get confused: Taxi is not a big screen version of the Judd Hirsch/Danny DeVito 70s comedy, although such an idea would have been far better than this spectacularly bad remake of Luc Besson's French hit of the same name. The original may never go down as Besson's best work (considering he made La Femme Nikita, Subway and The Big Blue among others), but it was a huge success at the French box office, where it spawned two sequels. The creators of the remake have divested the original of what little heart and soul it did have, and despite their presumable best intentions to make a light-hearted action movie, even the car scenes - the film's main selling point - leave a lot to be desired.

Switching the action to New York, the screenplay now turns Besson's goofy hero into Queen Latifah, who appears to be going through post-Oscar blues since her win for Chicago if this choice is anything to go by. Latifah stars as Belle, a ballsy would-be racing driver, who decides to gain experience for the track by practicing on the streets of the Big Apple. It seems an odd choice given that the stereotype of a Manhattan cabbie is a recently arrived Eastern European émigré. Belle's car is a souped-up yellow affair, completely illegal, and certainly faster than the city's traffic would actually allow.

Belle gets into trouble on her first day when her car is commandeered by Detective Andy Washburn (Jimmy Fallon), intent on catching a group of bank robbers who are plaguing the city. It's meant to be a buddy movie from there on in, with Belle and Andy trading jibes and what are meant to be jokes while they track down the thieves. A recurring joke is that Washburn can't drive - needless to say he does, and repeatedly crashes Belle's prize possession. The robbers are a bunch of six foot supermodels, led by Gisele Bundchen, Leonardo Di Caprio's erstwhile girlfriend, who here makes her screen debut. While she and her cohorts provide ample eye candy, the fact that all of her dialogue is in her native Portuguese says a lot.