Chip Happens.
Based on the late-70s-early-80s TV series about the California Highway Patrol, buddy-cop action comedy CHIPS is objectionably dumb and even more offensively crass.
Dax Shepard (also the film’s writer and director) and Michael Peña play the story’s mismatched partners (in-name-only versions of the original characters played by Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada), one a bashed-about ex-pro motorcycle rider turned police rookie, the other a slick sex-addicted undercover FBI agent.
The film has them team up to track down the dirty cops behind a series of armoured car robberies. But the rambling plot is simply a vehicle for tiresome bromantic bonding, crude gay-panic jokes and not excessively exciting freeway chases.
I managed one chuckle in an hour and a half. During an otherwise blah chase scene, a handful of camera-wielding bystanders get clobbered by a van. One of the heroes makes a brief check. Then flippantly reports: ‘It’s paparazzi. It’s fine’.
Certificate 15. Runtime 99 mins. Director Dax Shepard
CHIPS debuts on Sky Cinema Premiere on 3 February. Available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Warner Home Video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IfqqUTW-i4
