Slick and genuinely funny

At a time when the Hollywood studios seem locked in a competition to see who can make and distribute the most witless spoofs, pastiches and tributes, along comes one that is genuinely funny. This flick, inspired by the 1975-1979 cop show, is a not-entirely tongue-in-cheese homage to the buddy detective duo chasing crims in polyester.

It takes what sounds like a script left over from the television series and gets its actors to play it fairly straight. As straight as that show ever got, bearing in mind that its third main character was a pimp police informant and its fourth a Ford Torino. Starsky (Ben Stiller) and Hutch (Owen Wilson) are assigned as partners in Bay City, 1976, and have to solve a case involving a new kind of cocaine that cannot be detected by sniffer dogs. Vince Vaughan is the drugs baron, Snoop Dogg the sweet snitch, Huggy Bear. Starsky plays by the rules and Hutch just plays. Which is why the film works: these two comic actors, who are friends and have appeared on screen together before, play with all the ease of real-life collaborators.

Unlike most comedians cynically doling out versions of themselves (Adam Sandler, Steve Martin), I think Stiller and Wilson actually like us. They give more. Stiller is almost perfectly Starsky (dark curls descending to a fur collar) and Wilson is cool and gallant, a James Garner for surfers. He is the star here, with his laconic manner, his slow beat. He has long been Hollywood's knight-errant, smiling graciously while giving the impression that he has had a very late night.

His strangely sexy, three-peak nose - going in several directions and sometimes appearing to move of its own accord - sends a thud up the spine.

Starsky & Hutch
Cert: cert15