Starsky and Hutch Review

Would someone please explain to me why when Hollywood makes a remake of a TV show they don't stay true to the TV show and make up something so off-center from the original that it may as well have been something else in the first place? Examples: `I Spy', `The Wild, Wild, West', `Battlestar Galactica', `McHale's Navy', `The Hulk', and I'm sure there are even less memorable, (if that's possible), retellings of hit TV series.

Hollywood should remember something about doing a big screen version of something made for the small screen: it was made for the small screen.

It was shot, scored, edited and written for television which has nothing in common with films other than using your sense of sight and sound. Let's also keep in mind what makes a show a hit in one decade more times than not won't translate to a new generation. I'm sure shows such as `Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' or `The Sopranos' won't be popular in ten years let alone in 29 years such as `Starsky & Hutch.' However, there are exceptions such as `Charlie's Angels' and successful comic book adaptations.

John O'Brien has penned the upcoming remake of `Dukes of Hazzard', Director Todd Phillips is directing next year's remake of `The Six Million Dollar Man', toting his writing buddy Scott Armstrong around who also worked on this slipshod piece of shtick. There isn't enough originality here to start a chain letter.

On the other hand, the man that created the characters and the original TV series, William Blinn, unfortunately wasn't given the pen. As usual, Hollywood discriminates against its elders and the 66 year old writer who worked on a few hits such as `Gunsmoke', `Rawhide', `Bonanza', `The Big Valley', `The High Chaparral', `Brian's Song', `The Rookies', `Roots' `Eight is Enough' and `Fame', didn't get to go to the big screen although he was allowed to be one of the eight producers which included Ben Stiller. Heaven forbid an AARP member still gets to create in Hollyweird.

`Starsky & Hutch' is a mess. It doesn't know if it's satire, or waaaaay over the top, or straight comedy or shoddy slapstick. At times the film borders on the `Airplane' or `Naked Gun' satires of the disaster and cop genres, but at least they stuck with their premise and played it for all they were worth.

The film had a lot going for it but only for fans of the mid-70's series and even then Director Phillips and his cohorts of writers that probably couldn't sign a deal to write Bazooka Joe comics, screwed up monstrously.

`Starsky & Hutch', like `I Spy', (both of which starred Owen Wilson who has less talent than a script supervisor), were buddy stories. The chemistry between Paul Michael Glaser as Hutch and David Soul as Starsky is what made the show as was the chemistry between Bill Cosby and Robert Culp in `I Spy.' Even though Wilson and Ben Stiller have done a few films together, they just don't work off each other well.

I was in my late teens when the show was airing and I don't remember paying much attention to the plot. Hell, it was a Spelling/Goldberg production which weren't long on story but were long on turning their actors into stars - that's why you watched. You could pretty much take any plot from his shows such as `The Mod Squad', `Charlie's Angels, `The Rookies', `Hart to Hart', `T.J. Hooker', `The Love Boat', `Fantasy Island', `Melrose Place', `Dynasty'and `Starsky & Hutch', and just toss the dialog into different characters' mouths and you had the same show with different faces. Again, you watched the stars: Farrah Fawcett, Robert Wagner, William Shatner, Ricardo Montalbon, Kate Jackson, and Peggy Lipton. And that's what the country wanted in the 1970's - pure escapism with lovable faces to make us forget the Viet Nam War and a terrible economy. Today's mugs of James Gandolfini, Sam Waterston, Richard Schiff, and dozens of reality TV shows, says regurgitated plotted 1970's fare is anemic.

OK, having said all that there is a plot. Starsky & Hutch have to catch a drug dealer. Hmmm - maybe I was wrong on the originality aspect of the screenplay. Catching drug dealers is a new and exciting concept - in 1960.

Theodore Shapiro's score is very accurate to the type of TV background music of the original series though the theme was never heard and there are some inside gags for true fans.

I feel for `Starsky & Hutch' fans except for the cameo appearance by Soul and Glaser which brings up an important point when making a remake: don't give cameos to the originals - it makes their replacements look like stand-ins.