Could this vulgar reboot of a popular 70s TV series be the worst buddy cop adaptation ever?

• Video
• Image

Film Trailer: CHIPS2:32

The adventures of two California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers as they make their rounds on the freeways of Los Angeles.

• January 24th 2017
• 3 months ago
• /video/video.news.com.au/Entertainment/

Dax Shepard wrote, directed and starred in the movie version of CHIPS.

CHIPS

One star

Director Dax Shepard

Staring Dax Shephard, Michael Pena

Rating MA15+

Running time 101 minutes

Verdict Even the jokes are deep fried

FILTHY but fun, the 21 Jump Street movie satirised ’80s pop culture with the help of a raucous team effort from Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill.

The tongue-in-cheek film adaptation of Starsky & Hutch successfully flashed Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller back to the ’70s.

Unfortunately, Dax Shepard doesn’t really have a concept for his reboot of the long-running TV series CHiPs, another tale of two mismatched officers (these ones are members of the California Highway Patrol).

And it shows.

Baker (Shepard) embarrasses Ponch (Pena) with his rookie enthusiasm.Source:Supplied

Shepard’s main reason for plucking the ’70s series out of the remake pile seems to be a lifelong obsession with motorbikes.

Since over-the-top pile ups were a signature of the original show, he “updates” the franchise with lewd and vulgar humour.

An R-rated CHIPS might have worked — if the screenplay had been more sophisticated and the jokes funnier.

But Frank “Ponch” Poncherello’s tired Lycra fetish is flogged until it suffers from lactic acid cramps.

And Shepard’s character never really recovers from the first — unusually intimate — locker room hug.

The filmmaker — a long-time motorcycle enthusiast who races at Southern California’s Buttonwillow Raceway — clearly wrote the character of Jon Baker with himself in mind.

DANCE ACADEMY: This movie doesn’t miss a step

Ponch (Pena) wants a slice of the undercover action in CHIPS.Source:Supplied

Formerly a professional motorbike rider, Baker’s body is so battered and broken, he downs pain killers as if they were Tic Tacs.

The sweet, dumb, hygienically-challenged self-help junkie has joined the Californian Highway Patrol in an attempt to resurrect his failing marriage (to real-life wife Kristen Bell).

After barely scraping through the admission process, the rookie cop is assigned to the hard-ass but overly-impulsive Ponch, whose sexual addiction has just seen him demoted back to uniform, albeit in an undercover role.

Much to Ponch’s chagrin, the fellow FBI officer he accidentally shot has been placed in charge of the investigation — into a multi-million dollar heist that might well be an inside job.

What with Baker’s lack of policing experience and Ponch’s non-existent bike riding skills, the scene is set for a wild and anarchic ride.

Ponch (Pena) and Baker (Shepard) are quite a team in CHIPS.Source:Supplied

Buddy movies rely on the chemistry between the two leads.

Pena might be the consummate sidekick (War on Everyone, Ant-Man), but even he struggles here.

It’s hard to separate Shepard’s performance from the finished product, since he’s responsible for both, but the two men might well have made a credible comic team were it not for the paucity of the material.

An unrepentantly low-brow low point in the history of both buddy movies and TV remakes.

CHIPS is now showing