THE MOD SQUAD RATING: 5 / 10 --> Bad movie
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Gather closely around the table, kids, and let's try to figure out what goes through the minds of Hollywood studio execs, when green-lighting a movie such as this. "We'll get the baby-boomers in the theatres with the TV show's nostalgia factor. We'll get every single kind of kid in the theatre with the three divergent stars of the movie. We'll slap it all in an eclectic, hip, young soundtrack and spend our weekends counting all of the money that we will make. But what about a story, sir? Forget the story, son. This is marketing!!!"
PLOT: Three young hoodlums are taken in by a cop who is willing to give them a second chance. He tells them that they could either work undercover for him or go to jail. They choose the former route and begin their investigation of the stolen drug evidence. Soon enough, they find themselves in over their heads, and without any legal authority to do much about it.
CRITIQUE: This film has no character development. We are given no reason to give a rat's ass about any of its leads. This film has a plot line no more intricate than any weekly mediocre episode of "Miami Vice". With Aaron Spelling executive producing, this is no big surprise. This film has bad dialogue, pretty bad acting, and a horrible haircut by way of Claire Danes. When you consider that this is a remake of a popular TV series, this might be caused by the lack of clarity on whether or not this movie was trying to be serious on its own, or a parody of said show. But most importantly, this movie is not entertaining in the least, hasn't a single memorable moment in its entire short runtime of 94 minutes, and only saves itself from being a complete loss, by the way of Giovanni Ribisi's funny lines.
Oh yeah, and another thing. The number of irrational scenes in this movie is staggering. Why would anyone give these "kids" any information on the streets, you might ask? Who knows. One guy gave up all his information without ever being shown a badge, a gun, or even a viable threat. Also, early on in the movie, the kids have an opportunity to bail on their given ultimatum without any repercussions, but without much explanation, they remain on the case, for in my humble opinion, the sake of this most uninspirational screenplay. No hip clothes, no hip songs, no slick style, this film has very little mod about it. In fact, my dictionary definition of mod reads: "boldly modern and unconventional". This movie is anything but this! It's a boring, standard, TV show-remake gone wrong, starring Claire Danes in a role not meant for her, Omar Epps brooding and walking funny, and Ribisi as the film's only saving grace. And did I mention that there's barely any action in this movie? You have better chances of being amused in a dentist's office.
Little Known Facts about this film and its stars: Born and raised in New York, Claire Danes always wanted to be an actress. She enrolled at the Lee Strassberg Theatre Institute when she was only ten years old. Omar Epps is also a rapper and a music video director for such artists as Heather B, Special Ed and his own rap duo, Wolf Pack. He and his cousin G-Sharp, recently recorded an as-yet untitled album, producing two of its tracks. A Brooklyn native, he received his professional training at High School of Performing Arts in New York City. Giovanni Ribisi has been in such diverse fare as Steven Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY (9/10) and TV's "Friends", as Phoebe's (Lisa Kudrow) brother, and "The X-Files". Actors Richard Jenkins and Josh Brolin, who both star in this film, also co-starred as gay police officers in the hilarious FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (8.5/10). "The Mod Squad" TV series also spawned from the brainchild of producer Aaron Spelling. The series ran from 1968 to 1972, encompassing 100 episodes. He is also known to be the father of TV actress Tori Spelling.
Review Date: March 22, 1999 Director: Scott Silver Writers: Stephen Kay, Scott Silver and Kate Lanier Producers: Ben Myron, Alan Riche and Tony Ludwig Actors: Claire Danes as Julie Barnes, Giovanni Ribisi as Pete Cochrane, Omar Epps as Lincoln Hayes Genre: Crime Year of Release: 1999
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(c) 1999 Berge Garabedian
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