CHiPs Review

CHiPs was not a great film with a fairly generic story featuring hit or miss laughs, but I will say that the latter did occasionally hit well. It focuses on very crude levels of humor so there was definitely a target audience in mind with the movie and I'm not sure people other than the current younger demographic will care for it.

The story mainly follows Frank 'Ponch' Poncherello (Michael Peña) who is a snide sex addicted FBI agent tasked with going undercover. This case has him attempting to discover who is the behind the recent crime spree as there are many inside men at the California Highway Patrol. On the other side of things Jon Baker (Dax Shepard) has a rough end to his racing career and sees joining the patrol as a way to get his life together.

Jon takes on the role of the focused one trying to keep it all together while dealing with a shattered body. The two end up as partners and the duo actually shares a fair bit of chemistry on the screen. The plot featured some levels of detective work though that was quickly ditched for some adrenaline filled scenes.

The film was shot fine though nothing too fancy with some alright acting along the way. It wasn't necessarily bad by any means, it just wasn't that great of a film. The jokes were really hit or miss with some causing a quiet theater whereas others did seem to hit the marks. The humor was very crude in nature hitting that cringe factor at times.

The action was well done with some great driving stunts, particularly with motorcycles that were pleasant to watch. The two seemed to be having fun at least working well together though in a typical type of fashion that has become generic in these types of buddy cop films. It would have been better to also see some of the side characters get developed as they were mostly just there filling an odd extra line while not doing anything important.

The Conclusion

There were solid levels of adrenaline filled action and raunchy comedy if that's your thing, but not much else. The plot was generic with the laughs varying greatly on whether they'd hit and who seemed to find them funny at the screening. I did have a couple laughs for sure, but much of it wasn't that great.

Shepard and Peña did seem to grow some quality chemistry though this took awhile to obtain and it was rather odd seeing Peña as this badass individual here. It wasn't anything amazing to watch with some typical situations, but if it's the type of comedy you like then this will be an alright viewing.

CHiPs Review at Theater with standard Viewing

Rating Overall: 3.5