Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Showtime

EMAILPRINTWarner Bros. / Tribeca Productions

Showtime reviews
32
4.8 User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Crime

Written by: Keith Sharon
Alfred Gough
Miles Millar
Jorge Saralegui (story)

Directed by: Tom Dey

Release Date:
Theatrical: March 15, 2002
DVD: August 13, 2002

Running Time: 95 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for action violence, language and some drug content

Starring Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, Rene Russo, William Shatner, Mel Rodriguez, and Jullian Dulce Vida

In this spoof of cop buddy movies, a no-nonsense LAPD detective (De Niro) is forced to star on a reality-based TV show with a frustrated actor-turned-LAPD patrolman (Murphy).

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

From frame one Showtime displays an ingenuity, cleverness and briskness that never flags.

Read Full Review >
75

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's getting hard not to think of De Niro as anything but a dead-pan comedian.

Read Full Review >
70

New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein

It's hard not to warm to a film that features William Shatner (playing himself) looking at De Niro's character and complaining about what a lousy actor he is.

Read Full Review >
70

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

What the movie lacks in coherence it makes up for in zest, well-founded self-delight and a sharpshooter's eye for the absurdities of reality TV.

63

Boston Globe Tom Russo

Would seem to be surefire casting. The catch is that they're stuck with a script that prevents them from firing on all cylinders.

Read Full Review >
63

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Humorous but much too predictable send-up of reality TV and the sheer banality of it all.

60

Film Threat Michael Dequina

Chalk up another big-name star vehicle that fails to live up to a wealth of potential.

Read Full Review >
50

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie's funny in the opening scenes and then forgets why it came to play.

Read Full Review >
50

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A lame buddy-cop movie that squanders stars De Niro and Eddie Murphy as it races from one cliche to the next, blithely unconcerned with whether anything parses.

50

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

By refusing to take anything seriously (including himself), Shatner lifts the movie to a truly funny level of absurdity. Soon, though, it goes back to being the type of buddy picture Hollywood stamps out like stale cookies.

Read Full Review >
50

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

It's a wretchedly dumb, lazy and incoherent movie that's magically rendered watchable by Eddie Murphy's charm and Robert De Niro's presence.

Read Full Review >
50

USA Today Mike Clark

De Niro's scowl and Murphy's sass are inherently funny, though in this case both actors are forced to call in moviegoers' long-established goodwill.

Read Full Review >
50

Washington Post Desson Thomson

So pleased with its own spoofy conceit it stays in annoyingly self-amused, predictable mode.

Read Full Review >
50

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The moment Showtime begins to take itself even remotely seriously, it loses whatever edge it might have had -- and that occurs less than 15 minutes into the proceedings. The best time for Showtime is no time.

Read Full Review >
50

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Its breeziness keeps it from ever being completely bland or flat.

Read Full Review >
40

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Showtime is better than the fourth "Lethal Weapon," which was pretty bad, but not as good as the original "Lethal Weapon" or the superior "48HRS."

Read Full Review >
38

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

No matter how much good will the actors generate, Showtime eventually folds under its own thinness.

Read Full Review >
38

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A flat-out cynical attempt to launch a new Lethal Weapon-like franchise.

Read Full Review >
30

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro have made any number of lame movies on their own, but there's a special wastefulness connected to their first co-starring vehicle, Showtime: It's lameness times two, and then some.

Read Full Review >
30

Variety Todd McCarthy

A shrill, strained and shallow riff on a tired idea.

Read Full Review >
30

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Plays every convention twice, once as parody and once by the book, but the movie, trying to be two things at once, fails at both.

Read Full Review >
30

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

De Niro and Murphy are visibly uncomfortable with each other. Their improvisation seems chaotic and mismanaged, and the movie follows in kind.

Read Full Review >
30

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Isn't particularly assaultive, but it can still make you feel that you never want to see another car chase, explosion or gunfight again.

Read Full Review >
30

TV Guide Frank Lovece

This one makes De Niro's recent film "15 Minutes" look like "Network." Even worse, aside from a few scenes with Shatner, it just isn't funny.

Read Full Review >
25

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Muddled screenwriting and uninspired directing.

Read Full Review >
25

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

A criminal waste of talent.

Read Full Review >
25

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A disgrace to the talents of Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy, but it's not enough just to say that. It's also a disgrace to the talents of Rene Russo and whoever drove the coffee truck to the set every day.

Read Full Review >
25

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

De Niro seems to be reacting to nothing so much as the lame movie he's stuck in.

Read Full Review >
25

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

It is, from beginning to end, a paint-by-numbers movie. There's a mildly entertaining climax, but most of Showtime is a layering of tired pop-culture tropes by actors who are not especially interested in what they're doing.

Read Full Review >
20

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Add Showtime to the pile of Hollywood dreck that represents nothing more than the art of the deal.

Read Full Review >
20

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

The collective charisma of Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, and Rene Russo is the only reason to slap down eight bucks for this limp action/comedy, but then, it's difficult not to want to avert your eyes out of embarrassment for the trio.

Read Full Review >
20

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

There's so little urgency to the plot that one eventually feels not even the actors and filmmakers believe for a second in what's going on.

Read Full Review >
10

Slate David Edelstein

A buddy cop movie that pretends to spoof buddy cop movies along with reality TV shows, Showtime is so lazy and artless that … that … it saps my will to come up with a good quip: Witless in itself, it is the source of witlessness in others.

Read Full Review >
10

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Should come with a disclaimer.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

T Dizzle gave it a10:
this movie was hilarious, good stuff! Robert DeNiro's attitude is hilarious, and Eddie Murphy’s character is funny. Rene Russo’s hot too!

Mike M. gave it a 7:
This movie was pretty funny.

Jack H. gave it a 0:
Ugh! It stunk!

Adam L. gave it a 0:
What an awful movie! Neither were good, and if u want to see DeNiro at his comedic best, go see meet the parents.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use