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Here's a way to tell if a movie is really bad: Take a peek at your watch when the credits start to roll. If it's exactly 90 minutes from the time the lights went down, odds are you just suffered through a real stinker. Why? Because the director probably delivered a 120-minute opus to the studio, who immediately recognized it for the piece of dung that it was, slapped the director silly and hacked it down to a viewer-friendly run time. Another way to tell is if somebody sitting next to you keeps saying, `My, God. I wish I was dead!' That's how the person sitting next to me was tipped off to the fact that it blew.
Riding the wave of the retro fad, the popular ‘70s television series bullies its way into theaters with a lethal blend of bad acting, scripting and directing. In case you're too young to remember the show, it was about three teen delinquents who, for some reason, became undercover cops that fought both crime and fashion ideologies. There's Linc (Omar Epps, Higher Learning), a former arsonist that seems more concerned with his ride than anything else. There's Julie (Claire Danes, My So-Called Life), a recovering alcoholic convicted of assault. And there's Pete (Giovanni Ribisi, The Other Sister), a dimwitted burglar and spawn of the hostile suburbs. Three fenceposts could have been more effective. Did I mention that they weren't allowed to carry guns? That's right – an action movie nearly devoid of delicious gunplay. That's sort of like drinking a can of Coke that's been open for three months.
There are two scenes that I particularly enjoyed. One occurred when the three idiots were working undercover in a sex club. Communicating only with a series of secret winks and hand gestures, they delve deeply into their undercover identities, being careful to make sure that nobody believes either that they're cops or that they know each other. Then they all go home in the same car. In another dazzling display, Linc has to don a disguise to go incognito when on the run from some crooked detectives, so he puts on a hat. A hat. That's his disguise.
The Mod Squad is sort of like The Brady Bunch movies – everyone else dresses and acts like they're living in the present day, but the stars dress like disco is still king. They use hip lingo like `solid' and `right on,' and whenever something really exciting happens – and believe me, these moments are few and far between – the music awkwardly shifts from ‘90s modern rock to ‘70s deep funk. You know, Shaft stuff. The film has the look of a Levi's button-fly loose-fitting wide-legged baggy-crotch jeans commercial – all edgy and alternative. And if you can't get enough of Giovanni Ribisi playing that semi-retarded role (like Friends), then this is the picture for you. The rest of you should just stay away.
R – 1:32 for adult language, adult situations, brief nudity and violence
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