An American remake of an action comedy from the late 1990s, one written by no less than Luc Besson, Taxi has a good bit of talent behind the camera. Tim Story is the director, and the screenplay is from Robert Ben Garant, Jim Kouf, and Thomas Lennon. It's just a shame that Jimmy Fallon is one of the leads.
Queen Latifah is Isabelle 'Belle' Williams, a woman who is at the very start of her career as a taxi driver. She has spent years being a courier, and has even managed to get caught speeding while whizzing about on her bicycle. She's a very talented driver, and very quick. That's why she proves to be a useful asset when a police officer named Andrew Washburn (Fallon) jumps into the back of her cab and asks her to head to the site of a nearby bank robbery. Williams and Washburn end up working together on the case, although it's not made official. But it might take a speedy and slick taxi driver to catch a speedy and slick getaway driver.
Despite the work of the writers, there's nothing very witty or entertaining here, not outwith the stunt driving anyway. A large part of that is due to the screenplay just being a bit too thin, but I think the problem is almost equally down to having Fallon in the role of Washburn. While I can tolerate him in some of his TV spots, Fallon has never done enough in movies to fully win me over, which is a major hurdle when he's given a lead role.
Queen Latifah certainly tries her best to balance out the awfulness of Fallon though, and she's fantastic in her role (as she has been in many of the movies she has starred in). She cannot carry the whole film on her shoulders though, and that's what is being asked of her. Henry Simmons isn't too bad, playing her partner, and Ann-Margret has fun in her scenes, but Jennifer Esposito, Gisele Bündchen, and everyone else are just disappointing non-entities.
Similar to so many other American remakes of “foreign-language” originals, Taxi succeeds when it replicated the scenes that worked just as well in the original, but falters in the attempts to make everything more appealing to mainstream American audiences. You can watch this and not hate it. You’re unlikely to enjoy it as much as the first film though, as long as you can overcome the teeny tiny obstacle of subtitles.
This review may not have given you anything substantial to digest. Nor does the movie. I'm happy enough to have been critical without being too insulting. I'd encourage people to check out almost anything else directed by Tim Story, or indeed anything else starring Queen Latifah.
4/10
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