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Taxi
Story: A New York cop and cabbie team up to defeat bank robbers. Running Time: 1hr 37 minutes. Certificate 12A.
Shallow movie alert! With Queen Latifah driving a souped-up cab and teaming up with an inept cop to chase a band of supermodel bank robbers, you know you're not going to be asked to contemplate the big questions of existence - unless you consider one of those questions to be about the size of thong currently in vogue with today's bank robbers. Yes, make no mistake, Taxi is a brain-off movie - and when treated as such is a likeable if average comedy jaunt through the skidmark-festooned streets of New York.
The best bits are, as you would expect from producer Luc Besson, the car sequences. Besson's M.O. is to make flamboyant and highly implausible action sequences that survive on their sheer style and coolness. The sequences in Taxi are not as ambitious as past efforts, but still serve to keep the adrenaline pumping and the story flowing. Tyres smoke, shiny cars dodge and weave through heavy traffic, continuity is abandoned - you know the score. The driving is all real and the camera swoops and dives to increase the impression of speed. Compare these sequences with, say, those from The Bourne Supremacy and they fare very badly indeed - Jason Bourne would have crashed at the first red light - but in this light comedy romp they work just fine. The opening sequence, for example, shows a bicycle courier dashing through New York in the most preposterous but entertaining fashion - and this works because it sets an expectation, it warns you not to take it seriously and so you are ready when the stakes are raised and the plausibility remains in the waste basket.
I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: Car chases in Max Powered cars, supermodels in bikinis, guns. To enjoy this film you should: forgive its emptiness.
To pre-order Taxi for its release date of 11th April 2005, use the link below: |
Cast: Jimmy Fallon, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Esposito, Gisele Bundchen, Henry Simmons, Ann-Margret.
Directed by Tim Story.
I must confess to not recognising Jimmy Fallon. In his first lead role here, he shows a promising talent as the
impossibly incapable NYPD klutz, bringing zing to his lines with his affable and endearingly clumsy manner.
Jennifer Esposito seems a little miscast as Fallon's ex and lieutenant, but she covers it well. Queen Latifah deepens
her typecasting, but I don't think she will be bothered by that. She always looks like she's having so much fun making
movies that she is always very watchable and can add charisma to even the drabbest scene. Ann-Margret appears briefly
as Fallon's drunken mother, injecting another shot of charm and tang to help things drift nicely along. The supermodel
Gisele Bundchen as the leader of the bank-robbing quartet is merely there to look good and thus is given few lines,
mercifully. On the whole, the cast gels well and the partnership between Fallon and Latifah, albeit unlikely, is
pleasingly entertaining.
Summing-up time then, time to grade the report card. Taxi doesn't excel in any area, but it doesn't do anything
badly either, so it ends up greater than the sum of its parts. It's lightweight nonsense for the young at heart and
its stars make the film worth the price of a ticket. It's easy to advise you on this one - if you like empty nonsense
with fast cars and fast banter, you won't be disappointed. If you need believability or any kind of substance in your
action movies though, consign this Taxi to the breaker's yard.
