“Reno 911! Miami” fails to adapt to big screen
Audience members disappointed in movie’s failed jokes
By Elizabeth Daniel, contributing writer
Posted on February 26, 2007

If you like “Reno 911!” on Comedy Central, you won’t like it as much in the theater. Sorry. Like so many hilarious unscripted shows that take a trip to the big screen, the writers attempt to include a plot. They should know the lack of plot is what makes the TV version so hilarious. On television there are no stakes, just stupid deputies committing more crimes than they solve.

“Reno 911! Miami”often feels forced, and some of the jokes are just not funny. The jokes frequently fall flat because the movie steers away from the television show’s common themes. Audiences love watching Lt. Dangle’s (Thomas Lennon) homosexuality tangle with Deputy Trudy Weigel’s (Kerry Kenney-Silver) loneliness. People are in stitches as Deputy Garcia (Carlos Alazraqui) torments Deputy Jones (Cedric Yarbrough) with racist comments and often ends up being physically harmed as a result. 

Unfortunately, in the movie Weigel and Dangle take their odd relationship farther than ever before, and it is surprisingly disappointing, while Jones and Garcia hardly engage in a single racist tryst. 

Much of the plot revolves around the policemen trapped in a virus-infected building, with the search for an antidote at the top of the to-do list. Drug dealers, the FBI, The Rock and Danny DeVito also find their way into the movie. But that is the problem. If the viewer is a true connoisseur of “Reno 911!” they will know the movie doesn’t need all those people — it only needs the deputies and some fake criminals. It does have nudity and sex, but it tends to distract the audience and takes away from the characters’ funny reactions.

If you love the pure ridiculousness of the television show when the actors play the parts of both the officers and the criminals, you’ll be disappointed. Furthermore, if you love the vileness and strangeness of the crimes committed in Reno, you’ll be disappointed. And if you love the classic stupidity and shoddy police work, you will be disappointed again. On the other hand, if you love bad theater adaptations of television shows that obviously sacrificed film time for explosions and crashing cars, you’re in luck.

Despite all that, it is a funny movie at times and will give you lines to quote for the rest of the week.