It's easy to tell that Reno 911: Miami is based on a TV series just by watching it. How can you tell? There's maybe 25 minutes or so of solid material, and an additional 60 worth of filler. In bringing the Comedy Central half hour "reality" cop show to the big screen, you get the sense that the filmmakers had a hard time trying to stretch the thing out. The show itself is often quite funny, and the movie works when it's remaining close in spirit to the TV series. But then they have to go and throw in a silly plot and a series of celebrity cameos that take us out of the movie.
The film takes the incompetent cops from the TV series out of Nevada and into Florida, where they have been invited to attend a police convention in Miami. (They only got invited because every police force got in.) They arrive for some fun in the sun, only to discover a bioterrorist act unfolding at the convention center itself, which has trapped every single police officer inside. Since the cops of Reno are the only available officers not inside the building when the situation kicks in, these eight dim-witted enforcers of the law must literally become the entire Miami Police Force, keeping peace in the city while trying to find out who is behind the chemical attack at the convention center. Other subplots include the Reno officers trying to deal with an evil Scarface-like drug lord (Paul Rudd) who keeps on threatening them, and discovering the truth behind a mysterious tattoo of a man's face that has appeared on the breast of one of the female officer's after a night of sex and binge drinking.
When Reno 911: Miami is following the Cops-style reality show format, the movie can be a lot of good fun. The opening scenes where the eight individual officers are introduced, and the scenes where we get to see them on the job and dealing with situations such as a chicken that got loose made me smile and laugh quite a bit. The actors are at ease during these moments, and they're obviously having a lot of fun. Then the whole plot has to kick in, and the movie just doesn't seem as much fun as it did before. Reno 911 has never exactly been about plot, it's always been a series of mostly improvised skits skewering reality cop shows. While the movie does try to hold onto this format, giving us some various misadventures around Florida that have nothing to do with the biochemical plot, they don't seem as fresh or as funny as the Reno scenes early on. A lot of this has to do with the fact that a lot of the gags are either anti-climactic or have no real pay off. That's not to say that there are not some gags that work. A scene where the cops have to remove a beached whale from a topless beach had me laughing quite a bit, and the pay off involving an explosive device is one of the few that actually lives up to its set up and earns its laugh. More often than not, we either find ourselves smiling politely at the effort the actors are making, or simply staring at the screen with casual indifference to what we are seeing.
The movie seems to suffer from an identity crisis, as it doesn't know if it wants to be a series of skits and gross out gags, or if it wants to attempt to try to tell an actual story and parody action movies. It never finds a central tone or target for satire, and seems to change its mind every five minutes. This gives the film an annoyingly disjointed tone from which it never recovers. The celebrity cameos sprinkled throughout also don't work the way that they should, as they take us out of the movie. We're no longer watching a comic "mockumentary" making fun of cop shows, but we're watching a highly paid actor taking a cut on his paycheck for the sake of getting a quick laugh from the audience. I liked the scenes where the Reno cops took center stage, and were being their usual incompetent selves the best. It's fun watching these improvisational comics (many of whom have worked together for years on other TV shows) play off of each other and just be goofy. But Reno 911 wants to keep on reminding us that we're watching a movie, and the good stuff keeps on getting drowned out by uninspired gags or unnecessary plot.
I certainly don't regret seeing Reno 911, and I think fans of the show probably won't either. However, the inconsistent tone and the uneven ratio of hit and miss gags don't leave a positive impression overall. Maybe this would have worked better as a regular half hour episode with all the filler, celebrity cameos and silly plot removed. The cast certainly seems more comfortable with a shorter amount of time to work in. That way, they don't have to compete with a bunch of stuff that shouldn't even be there in the first place.
