Starsky & Hutch is a 2004 comedy film distributed by Warner Bros. and Dimension Films. Its stars include Ben Stiller as David Starsky, Owen Wilson as Ken Hutchinson, Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear, Fred Williamson as Captain Doby, and Vince Vaughn as Reese Feldman. This movie is produced by William Blinn (TV’s Starsky & Hutch), Stuart Cornfeld (Zoolander), Akiva Goldsman (Mr. & Mrs. Smith), Tony Ludwig (The Family Man), and Alan Riche (Bride Wars). The director is Todd Phillips (Old School).
As the title would indicate, the story is about two cops. One, Ken Hutchinson, a cop who’s willing to bend the rules in order to get his man, and the other, David Starsky, a by-the-book cop who doesn’t believe that any crime is minor. They are partnered together to solve the murder of a man who washed up on shore of fictional Bay City. Reese Feldman is the culprit but, obviously, the two cops don’t know it yet. Feldman is a cocaine dealer who has developed a new form of coke that is untraceable and undetectable. Starsky and Hutch find a card on the dead man with the dealer’s name on it and go to question him. He denies having any knowledge but his woman informs the detectives that the dead man, Terrance Myers, used to date a cheerleader from the “Bay City Kitties”. They go to talk to the girlfriend and she gives them an old coat of Myers’s with some dragons drawn on it. They take the coat to Huggy Bear where he tells them that the design was made by Big Earl. The two cops go to investigate Big Earl’s biker bar and discover that he is already in police custody for an unrelated crime. They pay him a visit and he gives them the new cocaine, which looks like artificial sweetener. The police analyze it and find nothing. The next day, a hitman hired by Feldman attempts to shoot the two detectives. They track him down and learn that the man who hired him owned a yacht, which the pair discovered Feldman had earlier. Starsky and Hutch disguise themselves as mimes and enter the dealer’s daughter’s bar mitzvah. Starsky overhears a phone conversation talking about a package that he assumes to be the cocaine. They bust Feldman only to find out that “the package” was actually a pony that he was going to give his daughter as a gift. The two detectives are suspended but not before Hutch learns that Starsky had requested two weeks ago to be transferred because his partner was dealing with “nefarious characters”. The two split up because of Starsky’s deception. A major drug deal involving Reese Feldman and the new cocaine is to go down in a couple of days and the two lead cops of the investigation are under suspension.
One aspect of this film that was interesting is how well Starsky and Hutch seem to get along despite being total opposites. It is ironic that Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, best friends in real life, were cast in these roles. Starsky is the hard-working cop who believes that all crimes should be pursued by the police no matter how minor they may be. Hutch is a little more easy-going. He is willing to bend or even break laws in order to get who he’s looking for. After the two are partnered together, they start to compromise their ways. Starsky loosens up a little bit and is more open to finding information from anyone, even characters like Huggy Bear. Hutch learns that following rules can work, too. We see this when the pair decide to send Huggy Bear undercover. When “the Bear” says that Hutch will owe him more than one favor for this, he tells him that he may have to remember some of the illegal things that Huggy Bear has done and tell Starsky about them.
Another intriguing feature of Starsky & Hutch was having the original Starsky and Hutch, Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul respectively, make cameo appearances. They appear just after Starsky’s car sinks to the bottom of the sea. The old duo give the new duo an identical car. The keys being handed down to the new Starsky from the old Starsky may represent a changing of the guard. Put simply, the old generation is passing on the tradition to the new generation.
To wrap, Starsky & Hutch is a very funny movie with some action on the side.
