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Jason Maloney reviews
MGM
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 15747 DVD
- Running time: 91 minutes
- Year: 1999
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 32 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
- Subtitles: English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Booklet, Theatrical trailer.
Director:
- Scott Silver
Cast:
- Julie Barnes : Claire Danes
Peter Cochran: Giovanni Ribisi
Lincoln Hayes: Omar Epps
Capt Adam Greer: Dennis Farina
Billy Waites: Josh Brolin
Three juvenile offenders (Danes, Ribisi and Epps) are The Mod Squad – an undercover police outfit whose combined experience of life on the edge is seen by head honco Captain Greer (Farina) as a more than handy means of solving low-life crime. Having marshalled his sullen and none-too-cooperative misfits to an assignment involving prostitution and drug trafficking, the case soon spirals out of control and our youthful trio begin to question just what exactly is going on.
Widely regarded as a less-than-successful big-screen 90s interpretation of the cult American TV series from way back when, The Mod Squad was quickly forgotten by everyone. Everyone, that is, except perhaps the studio suits at MGM who bankrolled the project.
The film commits possibly the gravest sin of modern cinema – that of being dull. Dull equals box-office suicide. However, dull does not necessarily make for a poor movie. The Mod Squad is a curious beast, with its total absence of vitality or imagination, yet there are moments when it evokes something approximate to the feel of a 70s TV cop show or – at its occasional best – a late 60s crime caper such as Bullitt (okay, I’m really stretching it now…..I’d better stop).
Despite its modernist trappings – slacker tendencies, smooth hip-hop soundtrack, off-kilter editing – the film simply cannot shake off its roots in kitsch television from a bygone era. Not awful enough to be good, and not bad enough to be genuinely awful, The Mod Squad loiters in a cinematic no-man’s land.
Plot-wise, it takes a simplistic and cliched premise and muddies everything to such an extent that even though you know what’s happening and have in fact seen it all a zillion times before, you become confused. The acting is vague, posing as deliberate post-modern irony. Even a couple of decent gags fall flat, through repetition of the punchlines at a completely unwanted time.
Nobody, not even the outrageously talented Claire Danes, takes the leaden script by the scruff of the neck and injects the necessary verve. She comes closest, since Danes’ talent will always pull her through the lamest of enterprises, but the other two youthful leads appear to be on some from of sedation throughout the movie. Neither are particularly irritating or offensive per se, but that’s the problem. These kids are too damn nice to be credible delinquents, too inept to be the wanton arch criminals the opening sequence tries to convince us they are. It just doesn’t wash…..and if the film is to stand any hope of really working, it needs to wash.
The violence apes cinema’s current fixation with in-your-face brutality, the language is wilfully (but unconvincingly) free-flowing, yet the flaccid showdown at the film’s climax is more akin to a children’s adventure. The lack of bite these previously unlawful tearaways display, and the condescending “hey kids! you alright?” attitude of their superiors come the final reel, puts The Mod Squad firmly in the league of posturing wannabe.
Appropriately, the actual disc is also merely serviceable without ever rising above the ordinary. There’s simply nothing to really grab the attention, be it the clarity of the sound effects or the picture quality. Extras are virtually non-existant – the “exciting booklet containing insider info”, as the packaging calls it, is two pages of quotes and soudbites from entertainment publications. Cheers.
So, what does that leave us with? A fairly competent, but strangely unexciting melange of ideas and styles. It seems unsure whether to be Go! or the 60s version of Mission: Impossible ending up as neither and both simultaneously. Future installments were obviously planned – and swiftly shelved when the public gave this Mod Squad the cold shoulder.
Maybe it will find a future in the arena from whence the idea came: Television.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL Check out Jason’s homepage: The Slipstream.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.