Movie Review: Reno 911!: Miami

FILM REVIEW: RENO 911!: MIAMI

By Michael Esposito

Chicago Tribune Movie Critic

3 stars

Comedy Central's "Reno 911!" - a spoof of the police ride-along show "Cops" - takes a shot at stretching the concept into a feature-length film. Unusual for this misfit crew, the shot pretty much hits its intended target.

The assorted Reno deputies and their tight-shorts-wearing boss, Lt. Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon, who also gets a writer credit for the movie), head to the bright lights of Miami for a police convention - by bus - along with the camera crews who capture their law enforcement adventures. Upon arrival, a registration mishap turns them away from the convention center and puts them in a sleazy motel.

A biological weapon is loosed on the convention, quarantining thousands of police officers and Miami's political leadership, leaving the Reno bunch to prove themselves as the only law in town. They must overcome an overzealous SWAT team member (The Rock), a beached whale corpse, drug dealers, a petty bureaucrat (elevated to acting mayor) and their penchant for wrecking the Miami PD's sporty Ford Mustang squad cars in their pursuit of the antidote to the bio-weapon - all this while keeping the streets of Miami safe from everyday crime, working out their intra-departmental romantic foibles (some of the sex-related jests would be too much for younger viewers; see MPAA rating below) and figuring out whose face got tattooed on the chest of one of their female deputies while she was drunk.

As you may have guessed, this is not high art. It might not qualify as low art. But it is 90 minutes or so during which people can put their brains on the shelf and enjoy a few laughs.

"Reno 911!: Miami"

Directed by Robert Ben Garant; screenplay by Garant, Thomas Lennon and Kerri Kenney-Silver; photographed by Joe Kessler; edited by John Refoua; music by Craig Wedren; produced by Danny DeVito, Stacey Sher, Michael Shamberg and John Landgraf. A Twentieth Century Fox release. Running time: 1:24. MPAA rating: R (sexual content, nudity, crude humor, language and drug use).

Lt. Jim Dangle - Thomas Lennon

Deputy Junior - Robert Ben Garant

Deputy Wiegel - Kerri Kenney-Silver

Deputy Williams - Niecy Nash

Deputy Kimball - Mary Birdsong

Deputy Johnson - Wendy McLendon-Covey

Deputy Garcia - Carlos Alazraqui

Deputy Jones - Cedric Yarbrough