CHIPS, a movie remake of a popular TV series, is a near-debacle

REVIEW: CHIPS is a loose, louche and desolately lowbrow reboot of a popular TV series which ran from 1977 through 1983.

Michael Pena looks worried what Dax Shepard is about to do in the near-debacle CHIPS.

CHIPS (MA15+)

Director: Dax Shepard (Hit and Run)

Starring: Dax Shepard, Michael Pena, Vincent D’Onofrio, Adam Brody.

Rating: 1.5 stars

Overfried and lacking taste

CONSTRUCTING a great, or even good, dumb action comedy from the bare bones of an old television show is much, much harder than it seems.

Do it right, and a 21/22 Jump Street can be the winning result. Do it wrong, like CHIPS, and everyone loses.

This is a loose, louche and desolately lowbrow reboot of a popular TV series which ran from 1977 through 1983. The basic premise was two buddies working as motorcycle cops on the mean streets and traffic-choked freeways of Los Angeles.

There would be a little bro-mantic buddying-up, a lot of high-speed chases, and everyone would go home happy.

Michael Pena and Dax Shepard fail to gel as cop buddies in CHIPS. Picture: Peter Iovino

This sloppy, sluggish update isn’t really interested in casually channelling the simple retro goofiness of the concept. Instead, it vaguely tries (and conspicuously fails) to be a turbocharged, two-wheeled version of last year’s hit The Nice Guys.

Needless to say, stars Dax Shepard (who also writes and directs here) and Michael Pena are no Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. As a comic duo, the CHIPS leads go together like underpants and skid marks: unsightly, embarrassing and increasingly on the nose with each passing minute.

Their mismatched characters are occasionally investigating a cluttered crime caper which is hard to follow, and continually cracking a ton of grotty, seedy gags which are tough to laugh at. (The film as a whole must be called out for its shoddy depictions and put-downs of women throughout. Inexcusable.)

Kristen Bell, who is Shepard’s wife, plays his vapid ex-wife Karen in CHIPS. Picture: Peter Iovino

Shepard is Jon Baker, an ex-motocross champ whose marriage and body have both sustained injuries in need of serious repair. Becoming a traffic cop at the age of 40 is his misguided idea of a quick fix, but a dependence on various medications and self-improvement therapies means Baker is invariably out to lunch when on the job.

Pena is Frank Poncharello, a semi-sleazy, sorta-sex-addicted FBI agent working undercover as a California Highway Patrol officer to crack some cockamamie case involving a deranged corrupt cop (Vincent D’Onofrio, terrible).

It’s best to remember Vincent D’Onofrio from his days on Law & Order: Criminal Intent rather than from CHIPS. Picture: Peter Iovino

Shepard and Pena’s failure to connect with each other — or collect little more than a stray laugh on their own — comes as a sad surprise here. Both actors used to have decent track records when comes to locating levity in any situation. Not any more.

Michael Pena is not to be blamed for this movie but the filmmaker Dax Shepard is. Picture: Peter Iovino

The blame for this near-debacle — it must be said the chase sequences are very good, if only for their creative choreography — can only sit with Shepard as a filmmaker.

There are so many stiffing jokes, flatlining performances and dead-ending plot twists happening all at once in CHIPS that it cannot have turned out this way by accident.

The best guess anyone can make is that Shepard must have been urged along during filming by yes-men with no idea.