Written by: Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, Jim Kouf
Starring: Queen Latifah, Jimmy Fallon, Gisele Bündchen, Jennifer Esposito, Ann-Margret
Rating: [2/5]
Protagonists in stories serve as the entryway for audience members into what occurs in the film and while they don’t necessarily need to be likable, they cannot outright hinder the film. Other minor characters can outshine them, but when the protagonist outright weighs down the entire feature, it makes something like Taxi mightily struggle. Despite the very best by Queen Latifah, she cannot salvage what Jimmy Fallon does.
Desperate to prove himself as anything other than an inept cop, Detective Andrew Washburn (Jimmy Fallon) utilizes the cab of Belle Williams (Queen Latifah) to get to a bank robbery in progress. As they get a glimpse of the robbers, these two decide to continue to reluctantly work together to catch these robbers despite the many ways Andrew messes up.
Watching a character like Andrew, who can barely do his job as a police officer brings to question who can qualify as a police officer. This question continues to get raised throughout the feature and displays this narrative sets traps for itself and continues to fall into it. With all of the screw-ups Andrew engages in within this feature, at no point does he demonstrate even a basic level of competence. How he managed to get his way up to detective is beyond me seeing as he should be nothing more than an officer doing traffic work. The film then hopes to team him up with a cab driver who knows how to handle herself behind the wheel to make up for his lack of driving, but she also surpasses him in basic police work as well.
This essentially sums up the entire film where Jimmy Fallon sits as the first name on the call sheet but Queen Latifah owns this movie outright. She does so well but cannot manage to overcome the nonsense of Jimmy Fallon and what he gets asked to do here. Starting out undercover, Andrew pretends to be a Cuban undercover and the idea the guy could convince anyone even for the slightest second he was from the island is not only offensive but insulting. This particular scene sets the stage for what makes him fail all of the time as an officer but just sets up the entire film on the wrong note.
Having this buddy comedy between these two has Latifah carrying all of the weight and makes me ponder what this film could have looked like if they just threw out Andrew, as a character, out of the story and just had Latifah’s Isabelle chase down these robbers herself. A film centering on a cab driver who simply wants to track down these robbers for any reason a writer could think of but instead we get saddled with watching Andrew stumble his way through cosplaying as a cop and being given multiple opportunities. Truly the physical amalgamation of failing upwards if there’s ever been one.
It becomes difficult to fully lay down all of the problems of this feature on Jimmy Fallon because he gets saddled with a terrible character as a whole. However, he also does not bring the necessary charm or humor the character needs in order to make any of what he does bearable by even the smallest degree. Therefore, he gets set up to fail but he does nothing to elevate the material either making for a real turd in the middle of something that utilized the presence of Queen Latifah and even Gisele Bündchen as one of the bank robbers. Every moment they share marks the best part of the film, especially in the chase scenes as they taunt each other in action. This aspect displays competence in full display and allows for some bright spots in an otherwise overly dumb vapid film.
Seeds definitely got planted in this feature to create something incredibly fun, but perhaps the writers and director decided to water the wrong ones because it gave rise to the worst performance of the entire group when others could have been highlighted. Instead of Williams getting more, we get the nonsense of Andrew Washburn killing any momentum this feature wants to create leaving someone continually taking away and never contributing anything positive to the project as a whole.
Films with Josh 
