Must See Movie...

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Taxi (2004): Dir: Tim Story / Cast: Jimmy Fallon, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Esposito, Gisele Bundchen, Henry Simmons: The taxi may be a metaphor for support as Queen Latifah seems to be cop Jimmy Fallon's only form of transportation after losing his driver's license. He is a bad driver and she is a taxi driver who dreams of racing. Her taxi is equipped with every gadget one could ask for but her love life is falling apart with every missed dinner plate. Plot centres around a series of bank robberies performed by four models. This opens the door to much senseless sexual screen time with no point. Latifah and Fallon are the new duo to play off the buddy film comedy and what they deliver is just a series of dreary chase scenes. They will bicker and fight just like others before them, and they will solve the case and become stronger buddies. Director Tim Story does his best. He had success previously with Barbershop but here the script is about the same use as toilet paper. Jennifer Esposito as the Lieutenant is basically there to be body searched by one of the female criminals. The screenplay is about as terrible as Fallon's driving record. In the 1970's there was a classic sitcom that regarded taxis and their drivers. Watching several episodes of that would be superior viewing to this. Perhaps the best idea would be to place this film on the ground and see how many taxi cabs swerve to miss it, or appropriately do it in. Score: 2 / 10

Preposterous critical flop (considered one of the most blasted films of its year, although it somehow was a financial success regardless) has a cop (who can't drive!) having to join forces with a heavily-ticketed taxi driver (moving up from bicycle courier) to stop supermodels robbing banks in tricked-up BMWs throughout the city.This is so desperate for laughs, Queen Latifa plays keep-away with Fallon's badge, with uniformed cops showing up to the unlucky cop's humiliation! Jimmy Fallon is a funny comedian with the right material and Latifa has plenty of screen presence and likability to spare, but, for whatever reason, this film was a disaster that served neither of them well. The laughable James Bond taxi cab that has buttons on a console allowing her to add a Nascar speed (the steering wheel comes off and the car transforms into a "taxi supercar"), with Latifa flying through traffic with relative ease, and Fallon, despite all of his incompetency and ineptitude (while performing on and off duty) as a cop his peers ridicule and find a laughingstock. While Jennifer Esposito looks foxy in tight "precinct office-ware", why she continues to tolerate Fallon's bumbling idiocy (she yells at him as bosses did towards Dirty Harry Callahan, but at least Eastwood's San Francisco detective was just protecting himself against street scum, not always leaving behind wreckage and costing the city thousands for fumbling the ball) is all part of the "strain your disbelief" expectations this comedy demands from us. Gisele Bündchen (now primarily known as Mrs. Tom Brady) is the ringleader of her supermodel bank-robbing gang (again, further evidence of how hysterically ridiculous this movie is to ring out the laughs from wherever it is possible to get them). Most of the car chase parts of the film concern Latifa pursuing Bündchen, taxi supercar vs. tranquilized BMW; you'd think these two were experienced stunt drivers speeding through heavily protected obstacle courses meant to persuade us that they are blessed with the gift to avoid certain death and destruction while other cars aren't so lucky…wait, that is the case, isn't it? If you can accept the "credibility strained to the max" plot absurdities, this might just tickle your fancy. There's even a "special" part for Ann-Margret as Fallon's constantly-wasted mother…meant to be funny, this was rather hard for me to watch actually. Embarrassing, really, for Margret as she depends on her margaritas for sustenance (she doesn't cook, but there are plenty of drinks!). Henry Simmons is Latifa's "sensitive hunk", Jesse. The finale where Latifa is driving with Nascar, Jeff Gordon (her idol!) parks up alongside to greet her (nothing like a little product placement, right?) put the icing on the cake.The film opens with Fallon undercover as a Cuban smuggler, getting his partner killed by accident (it was the parrot), with those being set up getting away. Right here is the first of many incidents that shows us that this young man has no reason to carry that shield. It is even hard to sympathize with him because he pulls the shield, stopping cars immediately, causing a ripple effect that leads to a stockpile! Yeah, I can't see why Fallon wouldn't be promoted to where Giancarlo is on the force.

Whyyyy? Why God? Why God? (Im agnostic even though this converted me) Don't the American filmmakers write, produce, make their own stuff! Lets see: a woman driver, for a change? yeah really? Is wasn't there available another less charismatic individual for the cop role, come on! Femme fatal bank robbers, this isn't a Michael Bay's isn't right? This is torturous, even a SNL's movie is way better! This is blasphemous, and i don't think Luc Besson has something to do with this perpetration! Next time, please french people, look who you sell your stuff to, do the research and most important, send a assistant. Avoid it at all costs!

YES! This movie is a re-make of an original french movie Taxi, in case you didn't know and a pretty bad one. If you are too lazy to read subtitles, well then I guess you are better off with this us trashy version. If you are not, then get the original from 1998 with Samy Naceri and Peugeot. It is sooo much better.The problem here is that for some reason, the bank gang just had to be a bunch of out of control Russian models. Yes! Beacouse that is going to happen! This movie is just an inch from these evil mafia walking around naked, it is hardly believable at all.Plus, I am sorry, but Queen Latifah is not really convincing as a racer person and in to the car kind of a person.Sorry, folks, I say you could just put less money into dubbing the original, than throwing them away for a poor try-out. I am NOT saying all this just because I am from Europe.