So, here we go again: yet another Hollywood film version of a TV series from a bygone era. This time around, it's a buddy-buddy cop show from the 1980s about two California Highway Patrol officers (hence the spud-tastic acronym).
The show ran from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, and it was pretty light, humorous and aimed primarily at innocent, pre-teenage boys. This film version offers an uninspired contrast and is aimed, presumably, at uncomplicated mid-teenage boys.
Written and directed by Dax Shepard, who also stars as officer Jon Baker, it's very much his vehicle (if you'll excuse the pun), and also features his real-life wife Kristen Bell, as Karen Baker, Jon's semi-estranged wife, who's a swimming instructor.
Michael Peña plays Baker's co-cop, Officer Frank 'Ponch' Poncherello, and the set-up is pretty straightforward. Baker is a carefree, former motorcycle performer, who aims to win back his wife's heart by becoming a cop, just like her father.
Ponch, on the other hand, is an FBI undercover agent, who ends up as Baker's partner when he's sent from Miami to investigate and unearth some dirty cops who have been involved in armed robbery and murder.
What follows is a pretty standard 'buddy movie' plot, as the initially incompatible cops slowly form a bond, while also working together - after Baker learns of Poncho's undercover op - to weed out the dirty cops.
There's a lot of impressive bike stunts, some gun play, and even a severed head along the way, but it's pretty tame, if amiable - although it's depressing that the female characters are pretty much seen through the prism of a frisky teenage boy.
Near the end, original CHiPS star Erik Estrada, who played the original Ponch in the TV series, pops up for a cameo. Nice.
Overall though it's difficult to get too excited about yet another so-so TV adaptation.
John Byrne
