Showtime is a 2002 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Tom Dey. The film stars Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy alongside Rene Russo, William Shatner, Pedro Damian and De Niro's real-life daughter Drena De Niro. It was released in the United States on March 15, 2002, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It received generally negative reviews, with critics lamenting its lackluster humor and poor attempt to satirize the buddy-cop genre, and was a box office bomb, grossing $77.7 million against an $85 million budget. It received two nominations at the 23rd Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Actor (for Murphy), and Worst Screen Combo (for Murphy and De Niro).
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Plot
Two LAPD cops, Detective Mitch Preston and Officer Trey Sellars, both from the Central Division, are paired for a television police reality show and run into trouble with a crime lord. Mitch shoots a news camera after a failed confrontation with local drug dealer Lazy Boy, who escapes by using a custom-built armor-piercing gun. Maxxis Television, the network employing the cameraman, filed a $10 million lawsuit against the police department. They offered to drop the suit if Mitch agreed to star in their new police reality show—a project Trey quickly dubbed Showtime!—and the captain eagerly approved to secure much-needed positive public relations.
