Showtime

Two Los Angeles police officers with nothing in common are pushed together in front of the cameras. Detective Mitch Preston is a veteran who values quiet and works alone. Patrol officer Trey Sellars, an actor who never made it, treats the job as a stepping stone to stardom. When Trey stumbles into an undercover operation Mitch has spent months preparing, the suspects get away and a television news crew captures the fallout. A producer then seizes the moment and builds a reality show around the pair, with the reluctant Mitch as its star and Trey as his partner.

Tom Dey directed the film, which followed his 2000 debut Shanghai Noon in his filmography and was written by Miles Millar, Alfred Gough and Keith Sharon. Robert De Niro plays Mitch and Eddie Murphy plays Trey, with Rene Russo as the producer, William Shatner as himself, and Nestor Serrano and Joy Bryant in supporting roles. The production was a large one, with Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, Overbrook Entertainment and Tribeca Productions behind it.

Released in March 2002, the film cost about 85 million dollars and took in roughly 78 million worldwide, so it did not recover its budget at the box office. On IMDb it holds 5.6 out of 10 from around 67,000 votes, and on TMDB it also holds 5.6 from about 1,100 votes. Critics rated it 5 out of 10 across 121 reviews, placing it close to the audience scores.