Taxi

Saturday Night Live expatriate Jimmy Fallon has so little screen presence he's virtually invisible next to the charismatic Queen Latifah, Ann-Margret, and Jennifer Esposito in this low-watt action-comedy in which he plays a wholly inept cop with a record of wrecking cars. After his frustrated lieutenant (Esposito) takes away his driver's license, the desperate-to-prove-himself Fallon commandeers a taxi during a bank heist, driven by take-no-sass Latifah, who--it just so happens--has customized her seemingly average cab into a presto-change-o supercharged street rod. Together they chase down the crooks--who are, purely for the sake of selling tickets to 13-year-old boys, leggy Brazilian models in a souped-up BMW. None of these asinine plot devices would matter if the film focused on irony or over-the-top action, but the stunt-driving is almost as lackluster as the picture's star, and director Tim Story (Barbershop) sometimes stops the plot dead in its tracks for comedy set pieces (as when Fallon sings along in falsetto to Natalie Cole's "This Will Be"). Granted, there have been worse first movies from SNL alumni, but none in which said alumni were so nondescript. Not recommended. [Note: Available in either a widescreen or full screen version, DVD extras include both theatrical and extended versions of the film (about seven minutes difference), audio commentary by director Tim Story (on the theatrical version only), production featurettes (“The Meter's Runnin',” “Lights, Camera, Blue Screen,” and “Tour Guide: Jimmy Fallon”), the Comedy Central special Reel Comedy: Taxi hosted by Reno 911's (and Taxi co-screenwriters) Lt. Dangle (Thomas Lennon) and Dept. Travis Junior (Robert Ben Garant) and featuring Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon, a “Beautiful Criminals” montage, four deleted scenes, and trailers. Bottom line: lots of extras for so little of a film.] (R. Blackwelder)